Anti-same sex marriage activists protest a few hours after the French Parliament adopted a gay marriage law on April 23 in Paris. Photo by Antoine Antoniol/Getty Images.

France became the 14th nation to legalize same-sex marriage Tuesday, after their Socialist-dominated lower house of parliament approved a bill that would allow homosexual couples to marry and adopt children. But the move has not stopped its determined opponents.

Following the Assembly vote, a bulked up police presence, including riot police, used tear gas to quell protestors throwing glass bottles.

While passage of the law, dubbed "Marriage for Everyone," is a victory for President Francois Hollande and the Socialist Party platform on which he campaigned, the ad hoc opposition movement, "Manif pour tous," or "Protest for Everyone," isn't accepting defeat. In fact, its opposition seemed to have generated greater fervor as the bill inched closer to ratification last spring.

The public face of "manif pour tous" appears to represent France's divergent cultural and legal responses to homosexuality. Retired comedienne Frigide Barjot, a fixture of Parisian nightlife known to mingle in all sorts of crowds (and whose lipstick matches the hot pink of the movement's official color), is a staunch conservative and one of the leading defenders of what's viewed as the traditional French family unit.

France has had civil unions since 1999, and they are just as popular among heterosexual couples spurning marriage. But these civil solidarity pacts do not allow for adoption. Between 50 percent and 60 percent of French citizens support same-sex marriage, according to recent public opinion polls, but only 53 percent approve of same-sex couples adopting.

French police estimated that 45,000 people turned out in Paris Sunday to protest the same-sex marriage bill, while supporters numbered about 3,500.

There were mass demonstrations leading up to the vote, including 300,000 protestors marching on the Arc de Triomphe last month.

Earlier in April, gay bars in the provinces were attacked, while protesters in Paris crashed through barricades on the Champs-Elysées. On Monday, the National Assembly president received a letter containing gunpowder and a threat of war signed by unknown "social forces of order."

Meanwhile, the viral image of a bruised face, belonging to a Parisian man who claims to have been beaten because of his sexuality, has become a rallying point for defenders of the bill and prompting the bill's political opponents to condemn the violence.

The legal possibility of a same-sex couple rearing a child is at the root of much of the public discomfort, with protesters' slogans reading, "a child, it's a father and a mother."

The French daily newspaper Le Monde solicited testimonies from protesters. Pierre, a 43-year-old Parisian socialist, explained that he's not homophobic, he just fears for the welfare of children raised in same-sex couples.

Opponents of the legislation included Roman Catholic, Muslim and Jewish leaders, along with France's conservative parties: the more mainstream Union for a Popular Movement, and the right-wing National Front. Even within Socialist party ranks, some leaders cited the same concerns about adoption.

Hollande, of the Socialist party, made a political calculation to campaign on same-sex marriage in 2012, said Bruno Perreau, who researches gender, sexuality and citizenship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has written a book about adoption in France.

But even the same-sex marriage movement sanctioned by the Socialist government, and its mantra of "marriage for everyone," does not acknowledge same-sex marriage in as visible a way as within the United States, Perreau said. Hollande would never be able to talk about "gay brothers and sisters" the way President Barack Obama did in his 2013 State of the Union address, he added.

Ahead of Tuesday's vote, opponents of same-sex marriage already were planning a May 5 demonstration outside the Elysee Palace and another on May 26 for Mother's Day in "defense of the family". After the vote, Barjot suggested that the movement may draft candidates for the 2014 municipal elections.

Related Resources:

BBC has a map showing which countries allow gay marriage.

GlobalPost looks at the Twitter backlash against the French gay marriage law.

View more of our World coverage.

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The George W. Bush Presidential Center will be dedicated Thursday. Photo by the George W. Bush Presidential Center.

Legacies are tricky business.

A new CNN poll released late Wednesday found support for former President George W. Bush on the rise.

As the George W. Bush Presidential Center is dedicated Thursday morning at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and with President Barack Obama and all of the living former presidents expected to attend and honor the 43rd commander in chief, Americans are viewing Bush more favorably.

CNN explains:

Fifty-five percent of those questioned say Mr. Bush's presidency was a failure, down 13 percentage points since a CNN poll conducted in January, 2009, during his final days in office. Forty-two percent now say Mr. Bush's presidency was a success, up 11 points from when he left the White House.

The survey showed eight in 10 Republicans say Bush's two terms were a success, compared with 43 percent of independents and 13 percent of Democrats. Bush's approval was just 31 percent when he left office in January 2009.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll showed many Americans see the wartime leader with rosier glasses than when he left office. Bush's approval rating rose to 47 percent, placing him equal to Mr. Obama's current approval rating.

At a fundraiser in Texas Wednesday night, Mr. Obama offered a little preview of his dedication remarks and kind words for his predecessor.

"The Democratic Party doesn't always get it right and this is not a feeling that is unique to Democrats," Mr. Obama said, according to a pool report. "I'm really looking forward to attending the Bush library opening tomorrow. One of the things I will insist upon is whatever our political differences, President Bush loves this country and loves its people and shares that same concern, and was concerned about all people in America, not just those who voted Republican. I think that's true about him and I think that's true about most of us."

And the conversation continues. Over the last week, Team NewsHour has been reporting on how Americans view Bush, and we're putting the library opening in context.

The opening of the $250 million library and museum sharpens the focus on Bush's presidential legacy at the same time the country is focused on the first terrorist attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post takes the initial stab at revisionism in a column Tuesday:

Only when we see a robotic, cold president like Obama do we remember fondly the tender, tearful love of country Bush often conveyed and the steely anger directed at our enemies. Only when a president completely bollixes up our relationship with both the Palestinians and the Israelis do we recall how warm and productive was our relationship with the Jewish state under Bush and how Israel proved willing to take "risks for peace" under the right circumstances. And only when we see our current president kick our friends and kowtow to our foes can we fully appreciate a president with strong personal bonds with leaders (e.g. Tony Blair) and fierce determination not to appease our foes.

Political scientist Stephen Knott, a professor at the U.S Naval War College, wrote in defense of Bush. He argues in the Post that it's too soon for historians to discuss his legacy, before the country is able grasp his true impact and fully understand his policy choices.

But others are more skeptical.

The New Jersey Star-Ledger editorial board weighed each of his major policy points, from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to immigration proposals and efforts to fight AIDS, with stark criticism. "Bush was among the worst presidents in our history. His mistakes were enormous, and they haunt us still," the newspaper wrote in an editorial.

A cohesive judgment on Bush's policies may have to wait until historians can study behind-the-scenes of his decision making. What did advisers tell him as Hurricane Katrina slammed against the Gulf Coast? Did his national security policies and the newly created Homeland Security thwart attacks after Sept. 11? Will democracy take hold in the Middle East and encourage peaceful leadership transitions?

Despite the kind reception he'll receive this week in Dallas and his recent uptick in polls, scholars will be forced to wait a decade or more until the library releases his papers.

Huffington Post's Jon Ward looks closely at the ongoing debate between Bushies over how he'll be remembered. And the Washington Post rounds up the top five Bush moments.

The NewsHour will have more coverage of the Bush Library and Museum opening all day Thursday. Watch the livestream at ustream.tv/pbsnewshour.

We're also showcasing our public media partners. KERA in Dallas will live blog the day's events. It also reported on the rebuilt Situation Room at the library. Watch:

CONTINUING THE FIGHT

Gun control groups are not letting up one week after a major defeat on the Senate floor.

Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun reform group founded by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly, has made a $50,000 radio buy against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for his vote against the background checks amendment. They also have been running ads against Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., who has suffered in the polls for her vote.

At the same time, the group is airing a radio spot thanking Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., for his vote in support of the amendment.

A new Washington Post-Pew Research Center poll measured Americans' anger over the failed gun control legislation. The numbers, with 47 percent of adults disappointed or angry and 39 percent relieved or very happy, are subdued compared with the pre-vote polls showing that about 90 percent of Americans supported expanded background checks for gun purchases.

We recently interviewed Michael Dimock of the Pew Research Center about that 90 percent figure, which gun control advocates often cite.

"Of a host of different kinds of gun control or gun legislation that pollsters have tested, this one stands out in virtually every poll as the most supported," Dimock said. "Far more support than any restrictions on guns, assault weapons, or bullets, or access to guns in other ways. It tends to get from a polling perspective very bipartisan support. You'll get well over 80 percent of Republicans, Democrats and Independent saying they support broader background checks for private sales or sales at gun shows. So it seems to be a very broadly endorsed idea."

The NewsHour will be taking a look the evolution of the gun lobbies -- on both sides. Judy Woodruff interviewed Jim and Sarah Brady and NRA President David Keene to get a sense of how each side has seen the issue change over the last few decades. We'll air that piece soon.

LINE ITEMS

House Republicans don't have enough votes to change the Affordable Care Act. Leadership chose not to bring a vote to the floor Wednesday, The Hill reported. Meanwhile, the Obama administration has tapped a new communications expert to spearhead public outreach on the president's signature legislative achievement, and lawmakers are exploring ways to get an exemption from participating in the plan's exchanges.

Republican senators are skeptical about the drones that the Environmental Protection Agency uses to search for pollution and survey animal feedlots.

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli hopes to remove himself from the felony embezzlement case against the former chef at the governor's mansion, whose lawyers late Wednesday objected to Cuccinelli's efforts to withdraw from the case.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Wednesday that residents can now recycle hard plastics. The Wall Street Journal reports, "The change will send 50,000 tons of plastic that the city generates each year to recycling plants instead of landfills and save New York $600,000 annually in export costs for such refuse."

The Council for American Job Growth, funded by the FWD.us group founded by Mark Zuckerberg, will run this ad thanking Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska.

The Washington Post profiles former Florida GOP Gov. Jeb Bush's "lifetime of intimate proximity" to Hispanic immigrants, including a dear family employee who was deported.

Strange bedfellows? Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Preibus and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., will co-headline New Hampshire's GOP Unity Dinner on May 20. And before speaking at an Iowa fundraiser on May 10, Paul is giving interviews with the Des Moines Register.

It's exceedingly difficult for Alaska law enforcement officials to write you a parking ticket and win, because they need to hand it to you in person.

Wouldn't have wanted to get too close to this elephant in the room, who's apprently really good at taking pictures with GOP politicians.

If you commute into D.C. on a Virginia Railway Express train, be careful if you cut across the tracks at Burke Centre Station.

Another day, another Anthony Weiner story. He told a news station: "If reporters want to go try to find more, I can't say that they're not going to be able to find another picture, or find another ... person who may want to come out on their own. But I'm not going to contribute to that."

Say so long to "penmanship." Washington state laws will now use gender-neutral language.

This diagram from Foreign Policy maps the various levels of the government's terror watch list and explains where Tamerlan Tsarnaev had landed.

Know a terrific state-based political reporter? Let Chris Cillizza know. Christina's nomination: Chelyen Davis with the Freelance Star in Fredericksburg, Va.

Neda Semnani at Heard on the Hill unravels the boom in hookup culture at airports, prompted by -- you guessed it -- sequestration.

Three years of the sun, in three minutes of awesome.

Members of Congress, set in great American novels, courtesy of Roll Call's Abby Livingston.

It's time for you to watch "The rent is too damn high," the rap.

The White House Correspondents' Dinner is this weekend, so The Week celebrates the "nerdgasm."

"What we've said to the girls is, 'If you guys ever decided you're going to get a tattoo, then mommy and me will get the exact same tattoo in the same place. And we'll go on YouTube and show it off as a family tattoo," Mr. Obama said on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday. "And our thinking is that might dissuade them from thinking that somehow that's a good way to rebel."

A Senate staffer proposal via Twitter? Basically adorable.

NEWSHOUR ROUNDUP

Watch here or below.

Don't miss this phenomenal profile by Margaret Myers of soul singer Charles Bradley.

The next installment of Kwame Holman's series with a former INS commissioner on immigration reform focuses on lower-skilled foreign-born workers.

Rebecca Jacobson details a new way students are learning about math and science.

Why is Alexei Navalny on trial in Russia? Larisa Epatko explains.

TOP TWEETS

Excited to join @chelseaclinton and my good friend @stephenathome on Twitter!

— Bill Clinton (@billclinton) April 25, 2013

I taught @billclinton to tweet! This is almost as exciting as the time I taught Cheney "Dance Dance Revolution."

— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) April 25, 2013

#SCOTUS laugh standings: AS 60, SB 49, JR 21, AK 11, EK 10, SS 8, SA 5, RBG 1, CT 1. Today's SB's last chance for 11 laughs to tie for 1st

— Jay Wexler (@SCOTUSHUMOR) April 24, 2013

Hell hath no fury like a gov mansion chef scorned

— jmartpolitico (@jmartpolitico) April 24, 2013

Reporter asks conservative lawmakers what their district is saying about immigration. "I'm not hearing about it" Jim Jordan said.

— Alex Pappas (@AlexPappas) April 24, 2013

Keep those eyes and ears open, lady. RT@shawnanbcnews This flight down to Dallas may as well be called Congressional Express.

— Neda Semnani (@Neda_Semnani) April 24, 2013

.@neda_semnani already spied the Speaker in the pretzel line in the terminal. #scoop

— Shawna Thomas (@ShawnaNBCNews) April 24, 2013

Politics desk assistant Simone Pathe and Joshua Barajas contributed to this report.

For more political coverage, visit our politics page.

Sign up here to receive the Morning Line in your inbox every morning.

Questions or comments? Email Christina Bellantoni at cbellantoni-at-newshour-dot-org.

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Kauai, Hawaii. Photo by Judy Woodruff/PBS NewsHour.

When the events at the Boston Marathon unfolded last week, I was about as far away as one could be, and still be in the U.S. Yes, halfway across the Pacific Ocean, in Hawaii.

While the reporter in me hates to miss a big story, I admit I felt a touch of relief, especially on the first day, at not having to pry for details in the gruesome aftermath of the bombings. But even from a distance of over 5,000 miles, I was glued to the news; on television, radio and online. Returning to my hotel room from a dinner Thursday night at around 10 p.m. local time, I watched the frantic police manhunt underway at what was 4 a.m. in Watertown, Mass.

It contributed to a kind of dual identity all week: on the one hand, I couldn't take my eyes off what was happening in Boston. On the other, I was conscious of how fortunate I was to have been invited to participate in a special gathering of Hawaii's business, educational and philanthropic leaders, on the beautiful island of Kauai.

Called the Hawaii Executive Conference, it has convened once a year since 1963, making this their 50th anniversary. I spent time with a diverse group of remarkable men and women, all looking for the best ways to confront the nation's and their own state's future challenges, especially in the economic and educational realms.

They share many of the same worries familiar to us in Washington, over jobs, government spending and the fate of their children's and grandchildren's generations. One striking difference I saw is the youth of some of their most impressive leaders: co-chairs were the 47-year-old president of the Bank of Hawaii, Peter Ho, and the 42-year-old private equity executive, B.J. Kobayashi.

I listened as they spoke of the need for better schools, a clean environment and greater innovation and risk-taking, to attract new jobs to the Aloha State. They heard a pep talk from AOL founder and entrepreneur Steve Case, a Hawaii native who urged them to look for ways to invest in their own state. Case's wife, Jean, who has become an expert in interactive technologies and social media, also spoke. The message from the Cases and other internet and investment pioneers was "take risks" and "embrace failure," advice they said applies to anyone interested in innovating.

The group also heard from Gary Knell, president of our sister news organization, NPR, explaining how news gathering today has to innovate in its own way to survive, given dizzying changes in technology. The era of one or two deadlines a day is gone; they are constant and the public not only expects us to keep up, but also to embrace their growing engagement in what we do. I agreed with his analysis and devoted much of the rest of my remarks to Washington's gridlock and the country's current partisan divide.

Still, that dual identity meant that for all of us at the conference, for all the focus on what's new and how do we keep pace with change, there was an ever-present concern with Boston. Before we understood the magnitude of what had happened, there was a little conversation around whether the news media was making too much of it.

But as the toll of dead and wounded quickly became clear, that shifted to a sense that, once again, that the United States had been the target of something terrible. And unlike other countries where attacks have sadly become commonplace, in the Middle East and parts of Europe and Asia, the U.S. doesn't treat them with complacency.

Four innocents killed in Boston by ruthless terrorists -- strikes just as hard at the heart of Americans living in Hawaii, as it does in Florida, Texas or North Dakota. We Americans mourn every death and every person injured. There is nothing to be "accepted" about what happened in Boston. It's a measure of our national character, of the value we place on human life, that we celebrate every soul lost, from eight year old Martin Richard, to 23-year-old Lu Lingzi the Chinese graduate student studying at Boston University.

As far away as we were on the remote island of Kauai, in Hawaii, we never doubted we were part of the same community as the people of Boston, horrified at the violence, mourning the loss of life, thinking of how Hawaiians might help by sending aid, and reminded that we share common values of respect for political differences and for human life. The national partisan divide that many deplore, seemed to fade for a day or two. The awful events so far away, reminded us of what binds us together as Americans.

Editor's note: An original version of this story was incorrectly edited to state that events on April 19 occurred in Watertown, Conn. They happened in Watertown, Mass.

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By Paul Solman

A man enters a Shoe Carnival store in Morton Grove, Ill. Photo by Tim Boyle/Getty Images.

Paul Solman answers questions from the NewsHour audience on business and economic news here on his Making Sense page. Here is Thursday's query:

Question: No one is satisfied with current numbers for employment or unemployment levels. My question: What is the metric (level) that we're supposed to be at? In the 1960's, 4 percent unemployment was considered to be full employment. Over the past years, that number seems to be accepted as being higher: 4 percent, 5 percent, 5.5 percent or even 6 percent.

Paul Solman: There are several issues with regard to the unemployment data. First, what is "full employment"? (That's the question you pose, Gary).

Second, there's a closely related question: what is the point at which the employment rate becomes so low, it triggers inflation -- the so-called "NAIRU" or the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment?

Third: How accurate is the measure of employment we are currently using, and how has it changed over time?

As to questions one and two, the answer has changed over the years and decades. In the 1990s alone, the full-employment definition dropped from something like 6 percent to a number closer to 4 percent. That's because the official unemployment rate did drop to 4 percent under President Clinton in the year 2000. At the same time, inflation rose only slightly -- back to a touch over 3 percent, where it had been four years earlier.

Yes, keeping employment up was a dot.com boom that seemed, in retrospect, to have been unsustainable. But while it lasted, 96 percent of us, by the official measure, were not only willing to work, but were actually gainfully employed, without causing a bidding war for our services -- a bidding war that would constitute noticeable wage inflation, which would in turn inevitably lead to price inflation to cover the higher cost of labor.

An even lower number constituted full employment in 1929. It's hard to compare data between then and now, but while the inflation rate hovered around zero, the official unemployment rate at the peak of the 1920s was 2.9 percent. Roarin' indeed.

Or consider Japan. It boasted an unemployment rate that never exceeded three percent for 40 years, from the early 1950s to the early 1990s. Sure, there was a no-layoff policy. Granted, women didn't join the workforce as they did in America.

But hey, an average of something like 2 percent unemployment over nearly half a century is, well, an average of something like 2 percent unemployment over nearly half a century. And while inflation in Japan did spike in the 1970s, just as it did in America, no one, then or since, blamed it on low unemployment.

But all of this leads, like it or not, to question three: When we talk about "full employment" of 4 percent (or even 6 percent) these days, do we mean the same thing we used to back when?

The answer is no. The government has changed the way it measures unemployment and as a result, some Americans who used to be counted as officially unemployed no longer are -- because they haven't looked for work recently enough. That's why I devised our monthly U-7 statistic, which includes everyone who says they want to be working full-time, but aren't. Compared to the official unemployment number of 7.6 percent, U-7 is running at 16 percent.

There's another significant difference between official unemployment today, compared to that statistic years ago. As we explained in a story back in 2003, many more Americans are now on either disability or in prison than in previous years. Were they out on the street looking for work, today's official unemployment number, as well as our "Solman Scale" U-7, would be several percentage points higher than they are.

Final thought. All of this rumination about the underestimation of true unemployment has one unambiguous implication for the definition of "full employment": it could probably fall below 4 percent without triggering inflation.

This entry is cross-posted on the Rundown -- NewsHour's blog of news and insight. Follow Paul on Twitter.Follow @PaulSolman

Community health workers receive new cell phones as incentives to continue their malaria rapid reporting. Photo by Imani Cheers/PBS NewsHour.

LIVINGSTONE, Zambia --Tokozile Ngwenya-Kangombe, a project coordinator with Akros Research, knows first-hand how dangerous malaria can be for pregnant women and children under the age of five. Roughly half of the world's population is at risk of contracting malaria and more than 200 million people are infected annually, according to the Malaria Control and Evaluation Partnership in Africa.

UNICEF estimates that in Zambia, malaria accounts for 20 percent of maternal deaths and that of all people who die from the preventable disease, 50 percent or more are children under the age of 5.

Malaria is a disease caused by a parasite and spread by mosquitoes. Zambia is home to the deadliest form of the parasite: Plasmodium falciparum and malaria affects more than 4 million Zambians annually and results in almost 8,000 deaths per year.

Ngwenya-Kangombe once traveled upwards of 100 miles per day to reach community health volunteers in southern Zambia's heavily impacted areas. She would spend several hours copying health volunteers and clinic staff notebooks documenting malaria trends. Now, with the use of mobile technology, Ngwenya-Kangombe and health workers have been able to double the number of clinics and patients they visit per day.

At the Siakasipa Clinic located approximately 30 miles from the famous Victoria Falls in southern Zambia, head Nurse Ruth Nghlove serves approximately 8,000 local residents. During the rainy season (November to April) malaria cases are higher than during the dry season (May to October) as the mosquitoes breed in water.

Several key interventions have been implemented since 2000, including distributing long-lasting insecticide-treated bed nets, indoor residual spraying and antimalarial medicines to curb the disease. The introduction of rapid reporting systems, using mobile phones to provide real-time data and the detection of high-infection areas, has health workers and volunteers excited about ending malaria deaths for good.

"With my mobile phone, I can get updates from health care volunteers while they are out in the field instead of waiting hours, sometimes days, for them to make it back here to the clinic with their reports" said Nghlove.

Community health volunteers are not paid a salary in Zambia. Instead, the Ministry of Health and partnering NGOs, such as PATH supply them with incentives including mobile phones and bicycles for their time and efforts. Even so, some health care volunteers are still in need of "talk time" -- or cell phone minutes -- to continue their work.

"I am grateful for the free phone but without talk time, I cannot afford to send in my reports electronically," remarked one community health volunteer, Anna.

Others, such as Kdnele, who has been a community health volunteer for 18 years, is grateful for his phone and bike. "I'm able to visit 6 to 8 patients instead of 3 to 4 with my bike, and I didn't have a mobile phone until I was given one to file my reports," he said.

PATH, in partnership with the Republic of Zambia Ministry of Health, has developed a three-step approach to eradicate malaria, including rapid reporting, mass testing and treatment and active surveillance. These steps are being implemented in Zambia on the pilot level with the goal of creating "malaria-free" zones which will then be duplicated in other sub-Saharan African countries.

On April 25, the global malaria community will commemorate World Malaria Day under the theme, "Invest in the Future: Defeat Malaria," aiming to reach the 2015 Millennium Development Goals and defeat malaria. While many developing countries have an uphill battle ahead, Zambia has found that embracing mobile technology is making those goals as realistic as sending a text message.

For a social media display of community health workers and volunteers, click here.

This story is part of a series of reports on the impact of mobile technology and health in 10 African countries. For more, visit The Cheers Report.

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People dance during a concert Thursday at the 37th edition of 'Le Printemps de Bourges,' a rock and pop festival in the French city of Bourges. Photo by Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images.

Here are four arts and culture videos from public broadcasting partners around the nation.

From "Nature," a profile of artist James Prosek, who paints using eels:

"Inspired by the Japanese art form Gyotaku, a type of Japanese fish printing popularized in the mid-1800s, artist and naturalist James Prosek created a series of pieces in the gyotaku style. But instead of using the traditional large-scaled carp to make his nature prints, Prosek decided to use a rather unusual fish as his creative tool, the eel."

Watch James Prosek: Painting with Eels on PBS. See more from Nature.

From PBS Arts, a deleted scene from the upcoming documentary "Jake Shimabukuro: Life on Four Strings," which begins airing May 10 on PBS. Check your local listings. We talked to Shimabukuro in 2012 when he dropped by our newsroom.

Watch Life on Four Strings: Hiroshima Peace Park on PBS. See more from PBS Arts.

NYC-ARTS takes a look at the festival Season of Cambodia, which features more than 125 Cambodian artists at New York City's stages, screens, galleries and public spaces, introducing audiences to Cambodia's cultural treasures.

Watch Profile: Season of Cambodia on PBS. See more from NYC-ARTS.

Oregon Art Beat profiles Michael Endo, who "thrives on uncertainty because he loves discovery. He is constantly challenging himself with mediums, materials... and deadlines."

Watch Artist and Curator Michael Endo on PBS. See more from KOPB.

Nick Corcodilos started headhunting in Silicon Valley in 1979, and has answered more than 30,000 questions from the Ask The Headhunter community over the past decade.

Every Tuesday, Nick answers your questions about resumes, job searching, networking and more on our Making Sense page. On April 30, at 1 p.m. EDT, Nick will give you the chance to ask even more question during a one-hour live chat. Leave your job-search related questions in the comments below or tweet them @NewsHour or @nickcorcodilos using the hash tag #AskHeadhunter. Come back here for your answers.

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Doris Meissner, director of the Migration Policy Institute's immigration policy work, says foreign-born workers are complementary to American workers.

The 844-page, bipartisan immigration reform bill released April 18 would refocus American immigration policy toward employment-based visas in addition to establishing the first guest worker program for low-skilled foreigners who want to come to the United States.

The bill would reduce the number of immigration preferences that are based on familial relationships while removing the annual limits on the number of visas issued to foreign-born workers who have "extraordinary ability" in the sciences, arts, education, business and athletics.

The proposed bill also would allocate 40 percent of employment-based visas to people who have earned advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering or math from colleges and universities in the U.S. and who have been offered a job in their field.

The bill also proposes increasing the number of H-1B visas to 110,000 from its current level of 65,000. The program allows U.S. employers to higher foreigners for specific occupations to work in the U.S. up to six years.

In order to protect American workers, the proposal would require employers to pay H-1B workers a higher salary and to first advertise the job to American workers at that higher salary before offering the job to an H-1B visa holder.

Doris Meissner, director of the Migration Policy Institute's immigration policy work, says foreign-born workers who come to the U.S. under the H-1B visa program are "complementary" to U.S. workers and that the visa program needs to provide more flexibility to visa holders because allowing that access is "a real lifeline" for the American economy.

"[The H-1B Visa program] allows for adjustment to green card status, but that adjustment period takes a very long time and during that period of time--which is multi years--people are not allowed to change employers," Meissner said in a recent conversation with NewsHour's Kwame Holman.

"That's a real constraint on people's lives...They need predictability in their futures in order for them to really contribute in this economy."

Read more from this series:

Undocumented Individuals 'Deeply Rooted' in U.S. Communities

Forty Percent of Non-Citizens Live in U.S. on Expired Visitor, Student Visas

'W-Visa' Would Enable Lower-Skilled Foreigners to Legally Work in U.S.

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In 1939, during President Franklin D. Roosevelt's second term in office, Roosevelt established a public repository to preserve the legacy of a presidency long after one's term had ended.

That tradition, operated under the National Archives, continues today with the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center and makes President George W. Bush the thirteenth president honored with a library. Below, you can watch a time-lapse video of its construction.

A time-lapse of the construction of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Courtesy of EarthCam.net.

Each library holds artifacts and manuscripts which detail a president's time in office. They hold gifts and possessions representing their personality, and exhibitions expressing their passions. Though you may find some of what can be found in each president's library predictable, some findings might surprise you. So, whether you've been to one, all, or none, test your skills and see how well you know (or can guess) what's inside the presidential libraries.

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Watch Video | Listen to the Audio

JUDY WOODRUFF: New York City was supposedly going to be the next target of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers. Mayor Michael Bloomberg disclosed that during a news conference today.

Bloomberg said FBI officials were told by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that he and his brother decided spontaneously to attempt an attack on Times Square last week.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly filled in other details of the plan after Bloomberg spoke first.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, I-New York City: He told the FBI apparently that he and his brother had intended to drive to New York and detonate additional explosives in Times Square. They had built these additional explosives, and we know they had the capacity to carry out these attacks.

POLICE COMMISSIONER RAYMOND KELLY, New York City: They discussed this while driving around in a Mercedes SUV that they had hijacked after they shot and killed an MIT police officer in Cambridge, Dzhokhar said.

That plan, however, fell apart when they realized that the vehicle that they hijacked was low on gas and ordered the driver to stop at a nearby gas station. The driver used the opportunity to escape and call the police. That eventually led to the shoot-out in Watertown, where the older brother was killed in an exchange of gunfire with the police.

Up until that point, the two brothers had at their disposal six improvised explosive devices. One was a pressure cooker bomb similar to the two that had exploded at the marathon. The other five were pipe bombs.

JUDY WOODRUFF: For more now on what was reported and the continuing investigation, we are joined again by Dina Temple-Raston of NPR.

Dina, welcome to the NewsHour again.

Just fill us in on what investigators are learning that they're passing on.

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, National Public Radio: Well, in this particular case, when we're talking about the New York plot, what they learned actually happened in 16 hours, a couple of marathon interrogation sessions that a special interrogation team had at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's bedside.

And it was during that time, before he was Mirandized, before he was read his rights that he provided some of these details about the spontaneous attack that they thought about having in New York. And they did have the capacity to do it, as Commissioner Kelly said. They had the bombs.

It was a question of whether or not they would actually get all the way to New York. And they had a gas problem and then ultimately the police surrounded them and ended up killing the elder brother, Tamerlan.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But this came out, as you said, in the course of some -- you said some 16 hours of interrogation over several sessions with the younger Tsarnaev brother. So they were piecing the story together; is that the way it worked?

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: Well, basically what's going on now is exactly that, that the FBI is trying to piece together what happened in the days and months leading up to the attack.

So, for example, there are FBI agents who are now in Asia who are interviewing the Tsarnaevs' parents to try and find out, for example, what Tamerlan, who had been in Russia for six months last year, what he was doing while he was there. They are looking for actual gaps in the schedule, for some sort of indication that perhaps he wasn't with his family or wasn't with his father and might have trained at a terrorist training camp.

And that would have given him the capacity to build these bombs. They're very curious to know whether or not the two young men were able to do this on their own, to build these kinds of bombs and allegedly wreak this kind of havoc just by use a recipe that they may have found on the Internet.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Dina, how does this New York angle though square with what seemed to be coming out earlier that they didn't have any other attacks planned or if they were going to go to New York, it was just to party?

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: Well, that's what we had heard that the young man Dzhokhar originally said.

But, you know, the way this works is he says something. And then they try and check it out. If it's inconsistent, then they come become and talk to him again. And we did hear from the FBI early on that they were trying to corroborate a lot of what Dzhokhar was telling them.

And this was clearly something that they feel that he was holding back. And they were able to go a little bit further. I mean, we do know that they interrogated the man whose SUV they carjacked. And he said that they had discussed New York. So I think that's how they put these two things together.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Are you getting an understanding of how these interrogations are working? Are they surrounding Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in his hospital bed and peppering him with questions? I mean, how is this working?

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: Well, I think originally, the first 16 hours, what they were trying to do is actually build a rapport with him to try to get him to talk.

And once they had established that there were no -- there weren't any other co-conspirators and that they didn't think that there would be any other bombs going off or any other attacks, they actually Mirandized him. So they had 16 hours of trying to establish whether or not there was a public safety concern. And once they had satisfied themselves that there wasn't, they Mirandized him.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And as you said, still -- they are not taking what he is saying at face value, but they do seem to be passing it along.

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: Well, I think after it's corroborated, they seem to be passing it along.

They’re not taking anything the parents in Russia are saying at face value either. They are claiming that the entire time that Tamerlan was in Russia that he was -- they knew of his whereabouts. And they are saying that the reason why he went to Russia was because he needed to get a Russian passport, that his passport was going to expire. He hadn't become a naturalized citizen here in America, so he needed a passport, and that's why he went for six months to visit his father.

I mean, that's not beyond the pale -- it's not beyond the realm of possibility, given that his father was living there and he was there for six months.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Separately, Dina, what about these reports that the Russians notified not only the FBI, but now we learn today the CIA, with information, warnings about the older brother, Tamerlan? What do we know, and what happened to those warnings?

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: Well, our understanding is that those warnings came into the FBI, and the FBI took them seriously and actually interviewed Tamerlan three times and interviewed his parents and actually did a rather extensive database on them.

And they were told by the Russians in kind of vague terms, our reporting is showing, that he was somehow connected to Muslim extremists in Russia. And he -- they were told that he was a threat to Russia, not to the U.S., but to Russia. So the FBI tried to run this to ground. They didn't find any derogatory evidence. They said as much. And they put him on something called the TIDE list, which stands for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database.

And basically what it is, the lowest level database that they have is a so-called terrorist watch list. They have about three quarters of a million people on it. So it is a very low level database. And he was put on that. And then after the Russians contacted the CIA, the CIA also suggested that he be put on the TIDE list. And he was. So that -- those things seem very consistent.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And rising now criticism from some Republican senators that the administration, that the CIA, the FBI didn't do enough to be on guard with Tamerlan Tsarnaev after they got these warnings.

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: Well, that is the big question.

And I think there is probably going end up being some sort of inquiry about that. But the FBI's line on this is that he wasn't doing anything illegal. And they did as much investigation as they could and they couldn't find anything, a predicate for them to go beyond just putting him on this TIDE list.

And because of that, I think there is some criticism, why wasn't he, for example, put on the selectee list, which is a slightly higher list? There is basically a hierarchy of lists. And a selectee list, there are about 14,000 people on that list, we think. And that would be someone who would be secondarily screened and perhaps tracked a little bit more closely.

And then, of course, there's the famous no-fly list. And we all know about that one, which has about 10,000 people on it. And no one knows if they are actually on the no-fly list until they get to the airport, and then they're not allowed to fly.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, the investigation continues.

Dina Temple-Raston, thank you.

DINA TEMPLE-RASTON: You're very welcome.

JEFFREY BROWN: And beyond the news of the investigation, there were some powerful moments today from a severely injured patient who spoke at a press conference at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Heather Abbott, a 38-year-old woman from Rhode Island, recounted her experience and her choice to have her lower leg amputated. Doctors had tried to save her foot for nearly a week. Abbott had come to Boston on the day of the bombings to watch a Red Sox game. She was standing in line to get into a bar near where the second bomb went off.

HEATHER ABBOTT, Bombing Survivor: It blew a bunch of us into the bar.

And I suppose it hit me because I was the last one. I was on the ground. Everybody was running to back of the bar to the exit. And I felt like my foot was on fire. I knew I couldn't stand up. I didn't know what to do. I was just screaming, somebody, please help me.

And I was thinking, who is going to help me? I mean, everybody else is running for their lives. And to my surprise, and from what I'm learning now, I'm kind of just learning how I was sort of rescued out of there, there were two women and two men involved in helping me get out of the bar and into an ambulance.

And you can't sit there and say what if. What if I arrived five minutes later or five minutes earlier, or what if I decided not to go to the game this year? And I think I did that for a little while, but this is the situation I'm faced with. It's not going to change. So for me to just kind of dwell on negative is sort of a waste of time for me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: That was Heather Abbott, a 38-year-old woman from Rhode Island who had one of her legs, lower legs amputated at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

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HARI SREENIVASAN: The death toll from a collapsed building in Bangladesh topped 230 today and rescue efforts continued throughout the day. Officials said some 2,000 people survived the disaster, but an unknown number were trapped.

We have a report narrated by John Sparks of Independent Television News.

JOHN SPARKS, Independent Television News: In the rubble and dust, amidst the concrete slabs and toppled sewing machines, the search for survivors goes on, but time is running out in the remains of what they used to call the Rana Plaza. It was home to garment factories and a shopping mall, but now it's the site of a national disaster.

In dark spaces, deep within the ruins, voices are heard, people out of reach begging for their lives. Overnight, soldiers and firemen and local volunteers combed the site, removing bodies and bits of rubble by hand, but specialist tools and equipment were hard to come by. Still, there were survivors, both relieved and angry, claiming they'd been forced to work by factory bosses, despite the appearance of cracks in the building earlier in the week.

WOMAN: We didn't want to go into the factory, but the managers made us. They said there was no problem.

JOHN SPARKS: Local television footage broadcast the day before the building collapsed does show cracks in the walls, and today the police said factory bosses ignored them when they ordered an evacuation of Rana Plaza.

This disaster raises serious questions about the commitment of factory owners, governments and fashion brands to ensure safe working conditions. This afternoon in Dhaka, workers made their own demands in front of the garment industry's offices, the call for better conditions. When their anger boiled over, skirmishes with the police broke out and three factories were vandalized.

HARI SREENIVASAN: In Iraq, more than 40 people died today in the city of Mosul, as Sunni militants battled police. Elsewhere, gunmen seized control of a Sunni town north of Baghdad. There was no immediate word of casualties. Today's violence marked the latest clashes between Sunnis and government security forces that have killed more than 150 people in three days.

Last week's disaster at a Texas fertilizer plant brought out hundreds of mourners today, including the president. They attended a memorial service for the 14 people killed.

A long line of fire trucks made its way through Waco, Texas more than a week after an earth-shattering explosion leveled parts of the nearby small town of West. Firemen and other rescue workers from around the state and country gathered in tribute to their 10 volunteer comrades killed in the blast. They also hoped to demonstrate that West is not forgotten in President Obama's words from last Friday, amid the Boston terror attack that garnered so much of the nation's attention.

GOV. RICK PERRY, R-Texas: These were volunteers, ordinary individuals blessed with extraordinary courage and a determination to do what they could to save lives.

HARI SREENIVASAN: The president attended and spoke at today's ceremony.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Today, I see in the people of West, in your eyes that what makes West special isn't going to go away. And instead of changing who you are, this tragedy has simply revealed who you have always been.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Amid the mourning, though, many questions remain about what caused the explosion at the West Chemical and Fertilizer Company just before 8:00 p.m. last Wednesday.

It struck with the force of a small earthquake, wiping out a five-block area and blasting a crater 93-feet wide and 10-feet deep. The shockwave was felt more than 50 miles away. Chemical fertilizers were stored at the plant, but one is seen as the likely culprit: ammonium nitrate. It's been used in roadside bombs in Afghanistan. And the Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh, combined it with conventional explosives in his 1995 attack. That bomb contained about two-and-a-quarter tons of the chemical.

The plant in West had 270 tons, and it is unclear whether federal, state and local guidelines for reporting and handling the material were followed.

Assistant State Fire Marshal Kelly Kistner spoke on Monday.

ASSISTANT STATE FIRE MARSHAL KELLY KISTNER, Texas: We are still working on inventorying all of those chemicals. Part of that accounting process for all of those materials is this methodical investigation, has to go through it.

HARI SREENIVASAN: At least seven state and federal agencies were responsible for oversight of the plant, among them, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which had not inspected the West plant in 28 years.

Rhode Island will become the 10th state to allow gay marriage. The state Senate voted last night to approve a bill to legalize the practice. It had already passed the House. A final procedural vote will come next week. And Gov. Lincoln Chafee has said he will sign it into law.

On Wall Street today, the Dow Jones industrial average gained 24 points to close at 14,700. The Nasdaq rose 20 points to close near 3,290.

Those are some of the day's major stories -- now back to Judy.

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JUDY WOODRUFF: The Obama administration said today it believes the Syrian government has used chemical weapons, but it stopped short of saying that the regime had crossed the so-called red line, which would trigger a U.S. response.

Margaret Warner reports.

MARGARET WARNER: The disclosure came initially from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, traveling in Abu Dhabi.

DEFENSE SECRETARY CHUCK HAGEL, United States: U.S. intelligence community assesses with some degree of varying confidence that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin.

MARGARET WARNER: At the same time, the White House released letters using exactly the same words from Legislative Affairs Director Miguel Rodriguez to senators Carl Levin and John McCain.

In the letters, Rodriguez added: "We do believe that any use of chemical weapons in Syria would very likely have originated with the Assad regime."

But he said the U.S. would need more definitive evidence before deciding to act. "Given the stakes involved," he said, "only credible and corroborated facts that provide us with some degree of certainty will guide our decision-making."

For months, President Obama has warned the Syrian government against using chemical weapons in terms he first used last August.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We have communicated in no uncertain terms with every player in the region that that's a red line for us and that there would be enormous consequences if we start seeing movement on the chemical weapons front or the use of chemical weapons. That would -- that would change my calculations.

MARGARET WARNER: Today's disclosure brought calls for a U.S. response from lawmakers in both parties. Republican Sen. John McCain insisted the president must respond quickly.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-Ariz.: The president of the United States said that if the -- Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, it would be game-changer, that it would cross a red line.

I think it's pretty obvious that red line has been crossed. Now I hope the administration will consider what we have been recommending, and that is to provide a safe area for the opposition to operate.

MARGARET WARNER: McCain urged the administration to impose a no-fly zone in Syria and arm the rebels.

In a statement, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said: "President Assad may calculate he has nothing more to lose and the likelihood he will further escalate this conflict therefore increases. It is clear that red lines have been crossed and action must be taken to prevent larger-scale use."

Until now, the administration has said it's waiting for the results of an independent U.N. investigation into the allegations. Britain and France said recently they think the Assad regime has used chemical weapons. And Qatar and Israel gave similar assessments last week.

And for more on this, I'm joined by Mark Landler, White House correspondent for The New York Times, and Amy Smithson, a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Non-Proliferation Studies.

Mark Landler, beginning with you, the White House has up until now refused to say whether it believes the Assad regime has used chemical weapons or they have been used. What's behind the wording of this letter, the rather explicit wording of this letter now?

MARK LANDLER, The New York Times: Well, I think part of it is merely the sequence of event with the British and the French and the Israelis, as you point out, coming out with more and more explicit statements that they believe chemical weapons were used.

There was also a coincidence of a briefing on the Hill when Secretary of State John Kerry was going to brief senators. The White House knew this question would come up. And White House officials say that in the last couple of days, the intelligence community has become much firmer in its assessment that the weapons were used.

So I think there was an extent to which the White House was scrambling to catch up with events and try to get ahead of this by saying something that's now been said by many U.S. allies.

MARGARET WARNER: And in the letter, there was an interesting phrase which Sec. Hagel used too, which he said the intelligence community assessment was offered with -- quote -- "varying degrees of confidence."

What is that supposed to signal?

MARK LANDLER: Well, I think what it signals is that this is not a unanimous, very high level of certainty assessment.

We have been told that really what we are talking about is a range of assessments from medium to high, you know, which is to say that there's a reasonable degree of confidence in the assessment, but not a certainty. And, remember, the administration is presenting this against the history of the Bush administration and the Iraq war, something they alluded to obliquely in the letter to the senators today.

So I think what they're trying to do is show an abundance of caution and not use the intelligence to reach conclusions prematurely, particularly in a case like this where President Obama is on record as being extremely reluctant about being drawn into the conflict.

MARGARET WARNER: Amy Smithson, what is sarin and what is known about the Assad regime's -- whether they have a lot of stockpiles of this?

AMY SMITHSON, Monterey Institute of International Studies: Sarin is a nerve agent, and it is one of several nerve agents that were created during the World War II era.

The Syrian government has long been thought to have an active offensive chemical weapons program that includes not only nerve agents sarin and V.X., but also one that many may remember from the World War I era, mustard gas.

MARGARET WARNER: And when the president's letter -- or, rather, his legislative affairs director letter says that, especially, you know, there are a lot of questions to be answered before a determination could be made to act, what kind of evidence could there be that would actually corroborate, that would constitute credible -- credible evidence?

AMY SMITHSON: If this U.N. investigation team gets on the ground, they're likely to be looking for any number of types of samples, including from any devices that may have been used during these incidents to deliver a chemical agent, from food and water, from clothing, from animals, from humans.

In fact, the announcement today alluded to physiological samples, but they haven't provided clarity as to what those samples might be.

MARGARET WARNER: Mark Landler, do you know what they're referring to when they said that this assessment is based on some physiological samples? MARK LANDLER: Yes, we have an idea that what they are talking about is soil samples, and perhaps other physical samples from people who are injured in the attacks.

So these are things, particularly if it was hair or blood or anything like that that would be very helpful in determining whether there was evidence of a chemical attack.

MARGARET WARNER: Do they say what more they're looking for?

MARK LANDLER: Well, I think the key thing the administration is now looking for is less evidence of the presence of chemicals than evidence of who used them and in what context were they used.

And that goes to the second part of the letter. They need to establish with a certainty that it was the Syrian regime and that the weapons were used deliberately, not accidentally. And that goes to that other important phrase in the letter, that the chain of custody over the weapons wasn't clear. So these are the types of rather difficult conclusions that the administration will now push for, both on its own, working with the Brits and the Israelis, and also through this United Nations investigation.

MARGARET WARNER: But, Amy Smithson, the U.N. investigation which the U.S. has called for is completely stymied, as I understand it. The Assad regime won't let the U.N. inspectors in, at least not so far.

So is there any way to establish a credible chain of custody, as you have described it, and Mark did, that doesn't depend on what might be questionable or unclear sort of agendas of the people who bring it to you, in other words, that are really from independent investigators?

AMY SMITHSON: That would be a challenge.

The investigation that the Syrian government requested was of the incident at Aleppo. But Ban Ki-Moon also wants the inspectors to go to Damascus and Homs. That's why we have a stalemate.

In terms of establishing a chain of custody, what this means is the law enforcement term. If they are videoing where they take the samples, bagging them and tagging them, and very clearly documenting throughout their journey back to a U.S. laboratory or a British laboratory, these samples, preserving them appropriately, then you have credible chain of custody that would stand up even in a court of law.

MARGARET WARNER: Finally, Mark, beginning with you, what would it take or does the administration think it would take to -- if the presence and use of chemical weapons has been established, to actually either neutralize or take control of Assad's assets in that regard?

MARK LANDLER: Well, there are a number of options that the Pentagon has prepared for the president.

The administration today has made it clear that whatever they decide to do, they want to do it in concert with other countries. So it's unlikely to be unilateral. But the types of things that you hear about range from airstrikes on Syrian aircraft and artillery, so they are unable to deliver these weapons, commando raids in to the country to try to secure chemical weapons stockpiles.

So these are the types of things you hear about. What you really don't hear about and what even people like Sen. McCain wouldn't be advising would be any sort of a ground invasion of the country. There's no appetite for having American boots on the ground. So that's almost certain not to be an outcome of this.

MARGARET WARNER: Brief final word from you, Amy Smithson. How challenging is it to secure sites like this, in essentially a hostile country at war?

AMY SMITHSON: Tremendously challenging.

We're probably talking about weapons that are man-portable, if they are loaded already, if the agents are loaded already into rockets. And it could be as large as missiles, because they obviously have missile systems that are capable of delivering this. So it's going to be a big challenge to try to secure it.

But there are some interim steps. And I would hope that somebody is considering getting defensive measures in the hands of Syrian civilians and also the Syrian opposition. We're talking gas masks and clothing and detectors.

MARGARET WARNER: Kind of basics.

AMY SMITHSON: Yes.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, Amy Smithson and Mark Landler, thank you.

MARK LANDLER: Thank you very much. 

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JEFFREY BROWN: And now a new library and a legacy on display, as five presidents gathered in Texas.

More than four years after leaving office, George W. Bush returned to the spotlight today. All the living presidents past and present were on hand for the dedication of his presidential library and museum, along with numerous other dignitaries, family and friends.

The 23-acre complex on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas also houses a policy institute. It will hold 70 million pages of paper records, four million digital photographs, and 43,000 artifacts. And as former first lady Laura Bush pointed out, it is designed to engage the public.

LAURA BUSH, Former First Lady: We welcome scholars and students and the community at large to gather here for generations to come. The center is designed to be human in scale, because, like the White House, presidential libraries belong to all Americans.

JEFFREY BROWN: Visitors will see exhibits highlighting key events in Bush's presidency, including the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina and the financial bailout. A space devoted to the 9/11 attacks has steel beams from the World Trade Center.

As president, of course, Bush's response to those crises provoked strong political divisions, but none of that was in evidence today.

Instead, former President Jimmy Carter praised him for providing humanitarian aid to African nations.

FORMER PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER: Mr. President, let me say that I am filled with admiration for you and deep gratitude for you about the great contributions you have made to the most needy people on Earth.

JEFFREY BROWN: Bush's father, former President George H.W. Bush, spoke from a wheelchair after a recent lengthy bout with bronchitis.

FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE H.W. BUSH: What a beautiful day in Dallas. It's a great pleasure to be here to honor our son, our oldest son. And this is very special for Barbara and me. And thank you all for coming. And to all those who made this marvelous museum possible, we thank you, especially. And we're glad to be here. God bless America, and thank you very much.

JEFFREY BROWN: Former President Bill Clinton defeated the elder Bush's bid for reelection in 1992, but they have had warm relations as the years passed.

FORMER PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: You know, starting with my work with President George H.W. Bush on the tsunami and the aftermath of Katrina, people began to joke that I was getting so close to the Bush family, I had become the black sheep son.

FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON: My mother told me not to talk too long today.

And, Barbara, I will not let you down.

JEFFREY BROWN: The former president commended the interactive approach of the Bush center. Some exhibits allow visitors to decide how they would respond in a crisis.

FORMER PRESIDENT CLINTON: Debate and difference is an important part of every free society. By asking us to join him in the decisions he made and inviting us to make different ones if we choose, he has honored that deepest American tradition.

JEFFREY BROWN: And President Obama paid homage to his predecessor by extolling the down-to-earth Bush persona.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: To know the man is to like the man, because he's comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He doesn't put on any pretenses. He takes his job seriously, but he doesn't take himself too seriously. He is a good man.

JEFFREY BROWN: Politics wasn't entirely absent from the day's proceedings, as the current president pointed to Mr. Bush's own push for immigration reform.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: You know, seven years ago, President Bush restarted an important conversation by speaking with the American people about our history as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants.

And even though comprehensive immigration reform has taken a little longer than any of us expected, I am hopeful that, this year, with the help of Speaker Boehner and some of the senators and members of Congress who are here today, that we bring it home. And if we do that, it will be in large part thanks to the hard work of President George W. Bush.

JEFFREY BROWN: When his turn came, the nation's 43rd president began his remarks by delivering a joke at his own expense.

FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: There was a time in my life when I wasn't likely to be found at a library, much less found one.

JEFFREY BROWN: But in a serious vein, he also reflected on the way he approached his time in office.

FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The political winds blow left and right. Polls rise and fall. Supporters come and go. But in the end, leaders are defined by the convictions they hold.

And my deepest conviction, the guiding principle of the administration, is that the United States of America must strive to expand the reach of freedom.

As president, I tried to act on these principles every day. It wasn't always easy and it certainly wasn't always popular. One of the benefits of freedom is that people can disagree. It's fair to say I created plenty of opportunities to exercise that right.

FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: But when future generations come to this library and study this administration, they're going to find out that we stayed true to our convictions.

JEFFREY BROWN: In the end, President Bush gave way to the emotions of the day.

FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: I dedicate this library with an unshakable faith in the future of our country. It was the honor of a lifetime to lead a country as brave and as noble as the United States. Whatever challenges come before us, I will always believe our nation's best days lie ahead.

God bless.

JEFFREY BROWN: The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum cost $250 million dollars to build, raised privately by the Bush Foundation. It will open to the public on May 1^st, one of 13 presidential libraries operated under the auspices of the National Archives.

And we look at libraries and legacies now with three historians, Ellen Fitzpatrick of the University of New Hampshire, H.W. Brands from the University of Texas at Austin, and NewsHour regular Michael Beschloss.

Well, Michael, let me start with you and with a general question. What's the purpose of these libraries? How much do they help shape people's views of former presidents?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: Well, the museum part of a library is basically -- and this is true of most of these libraries -- an effort to give you the president's point of view on his own presidency and that of his partisans. So people who come to see those museums, it's stimulating. They learn a lot about the presidency. But I think they all accept that it is almost like walking into the president's own memoir.

The part that is exciting to us historians, of course, is the archive where letters and documents, national security stuff, is opened as time goes on. That's what really moves us to reconsider a president.

JEFFREY BROWN: Ellen Fitzpatrick, in the specific case of George W. Bush, how fixed do you think is his legacy and what -- what will people be looking at in terms of him when they look at this library?

ELLEN FITZPATRICK, University of New Hampshire: I think that his legacy is actually very fluid.

And it's poignant that this dedication occurs after this terrible terrorist bombing that just took place in Boston, because his presidency, as the library and museum itself showcases, was deeply affected by the events of September 11^th and the terrible tragedy that really overshadowed his presidency.

And, in that sense, I think there's a poignancy to the timing of this dedication. His legacy is unfolding. And I think that in all likelihood over time, as the opinion polls seem to suggest, there will be greater sympathy to the burden that he bore in trying to come to grips with the worst peacetime attack in American history on the homeland.

JEFFREY BROWN: Bill Brands, what do you think about that question about how fixed is his legacy and what are people looking for in this library and museum?

H.W. BRANDS, University of Texas at Austin: I think there are two aspects of the legacy question.

One is the effect of George Bush's presidency on the United States. The other is the effect of his presidency on the world. The effect of the presidency on the world, that is a long-term project and we won't know the outcome of that for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years.

But his legacy in the United States, I think -- I think George Bush is going to be remembered as the presidency -- as the president who presided over the end of the American century, at a time when the American century was when America kept guns and butter both.

And during the Bush years, we discovered, well, we're not going to be able to have guns and butter both, and we might not be able to have either one. The invasion of Iraq is going to be -- is already being seen as something that was unnecessary and very expensive. And so presidents, including the current president, are going to go very slowly into anything like that in the future.

And then on the domestic side, there is the whole business of the tax cuts. And the Republican Party now, as a result of the Bush years, has signed on to the idea that you cut taxes first and worry about the deficit later. That's really a reversal of what Republicans used to stand for.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, Michael, all of those things, of course, are still very much in play and to that extent quite fluid. You I think had a chance to go to the library before it was completed, I understand, before all the exhibitions were there. But do you have a sense of the portrait of George Bush that it wants to present to us?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Absolutely. And the centerpiece, of course, is what he did to keep terrorism at bay and keep the country pretty safe.

So that's at the center of it. They do have one thing that is sort of an innovation, a growing innovation at some of these presidential libraries, which is a theater where you can go in and deal with some of the decisions that the president had to make. In this case, for instance, do you go to war against Iraq, the arguments for both sides?

So that does help, I think, educate the people who do come in. But I guess I would be a little bit more on the side that George Bush's reputation is more fluid, because I think a president's reputation doesn't really begin to gel until about 40 or 50 years later, because that's how long it really takes us to understand, for instance, in this case, what the Middle East looks like, what the war against terrorism looks like, what the economy looks like.

And, also, we will have all those documents that will enable to us see things from the inside. So, in almost every presidency, it looks very different later on.

JEFFREY BROWN: What about the other aspect of this, Ellen Fitzpatrick, I will start this with you, that we saw today of all the presidents gathered? It's this very exclusive club.

And you get to see them, listen to them, think about what they have done after their presidency. George W. Bush, for example, has taken himself largely out of the public eye for four years.

ELLEN FITZPATRICK: Well, it is an interesting point to see them all gathered together.

I was thinking today that there is not a single one of these presidents who didn't have during the course of their administration some terribly difficult and often very obvious and disappointing reversal that they had to come to terms with and that in some sense or another damaged -- quote -- "their legacy."

But I think Michael's point is very important, which is George Bush was quoted yesterday as saying that he will wait for the final verdict of history. He won't be around to hear what it is. The fact of the matter is, there is no final verdict. That is, every generation rewrites and revisits history.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: ... put out of business, Ellen.

ELLEN FITZPATRICK: Well, it's a good thing that it is as undetermined.

But historians themselves are not only scholars; they're citizens. And as they visit the past, they come back with new questions. And so Harry Truman was a president who left office not terribly popular, and who has been written about often since then. His reputation has improved.

In the last couple of years, there have been several books about Thomas Jefferson. So we continue to revisit these presidents. We reevaluate. We reassess. We ask new questions. We have new evidence. And it's a very, very interesting part of history that it lives. It's a paradox. We study the past, but it lives.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes, I guess we shouldn't be surprised that a panel of historians finds history fluid, right, and legacies fluid.

Well, Bill Brands ...

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: ... keep us doing this.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes.

Bill Brands, come in on that, the question of especially about former presidents and how they, how they act after office and how they are later seen.

H.W. BRANDS: Yes.

I think that every president gets a positive bounce from the opening of his library, because this array of presidents is the closest thing we in the United States have to a pantheon. And all of a sudden, you are elevated to the realm of president. And it's a very small and select club.

And in an odd way, the best thing for a president's historical reputation is to leave office under a cloud, because as Michael and Ellen pointed out, historians are inveterate revisionists. We always are asking new questions.

And if a president leaves office unpopular, sooner or later, we will find a way to challenge that conventional wisdom. So, in the case of Bush, who left amid the financial crisis 2008 and 2009, really, there's no place his reputation could go but up.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, Michael, that is an interesting point. I mean, I'm not sure that's the way they want to go out of office, right, but the suggestion is that they can move up in history, huh?

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: No, I think that's right.

They can. And, you know, you were talking about ex-presidents. Lyndon Johnson went back to Texas in 1969. He was absolutely miserable, A., because Americans were so angry at him over Vietnam and blamed him for it, and, B., because politics was his whole life. It was a very difficult withdrawal.

One thing you can say about George W. Bush, he's gone back to Dallas. He's painting, he's playing golf, he spends a lot of time with his friends and family. This is not someone who shows the signs of having gone into an emotional tailspin.

JEFFREY BROWN: And, Bill Brands, you're there in Texas. He is a son of Texas, of course.

H.W. BRANDS: It's very interesting how little presence he has had even in Texas.

And I am with Michael in saying that this seems to me somebody who is very well-adjusted. The presidency was an important part of his life, but politics wasn't the sum of his life. And I think he's moved on to the next phase. I think he's been very smart in staying out of the limelight, because presidents who can't figure out what to do with themselves after they leave office generally get themselves into trouble of one sort or another.

JEFFREY BROWN: H.W. Bill Brands, Ellen Fitzpatrick, and Michael Beschloss, thank you, all three, very much.

ELLEN FITZPATRICK: Thank you.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: Thanks, Jeff.

H.W. BRANDS: My pleasure.

JUDY WOODRUFF: And you can watch all the presidential speeches from today in full on our YouTube page. 

Watch Video | Listen to the Audio

JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally tonight, we turn to the political debate over guns in this country and the decades-long evolution of lobbying tactics on both sides of the controversial issue.

VICE PRESIDENT JOSE BIDEN: The amendment is not agreed to.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Last week's defeat of a bipartisan effort to expand background checks for gun buyers was cheered by gun rights advocates and denounced by President Obama.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: So, all in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.

JUDY WOODRUFF: It was also a shocking loss for loved ones of the 20 children and six adults murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. These parents and relatives were part of a determined effort to influence political change.

For most, it was the first time traveling to Washington and directly lobbying members of Congress.

ERICA LAFFERTY, Daughter of Dawn Hochsprung: Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would be forced into a situation that I would have to be roaming the halls of the Senate building looking to talk to any person who will listen to me.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Erica Lafferty lost her mother, Dawn Hochsprung, who was the principal at Sandy Hook.

ERICA LAFFERTY: She was a leader and an inspiration to everyone, her parents at the schools and the kids, and definitely most importantly to my sister and myself.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The legislative failure was made more stinging by public opinion polls showing as many as 90 percent of Americans supported the proposal.

In addition, millions of dollars had been poured into TV ads by gun control proponents like New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his organization Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG, I-New York City: Demand action to fight gun violence.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Also leading the advocacy were gunshot victim and former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly. The couple formed the political action committee Americans for Responsible Solutions.

FORMER CONGRESSWOMAN GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, D-Ariz.: Congress must act. Let's get this done.

NARRATOR: President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg are pushing gun control.

JUDY WOODRUFF: All this wasn't enough to beat the power of the gun lobby, led by the National Rifle Association.

NARRATOR: We're free already. And as long as we have the Second Amendment, we always will be.

JUDY WOODRUFF: They argue that even a limited expansion of background checks to include gun shows and online sales could lead to a national gun data base, something the president said was part of a pattern of spreading untruths.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: The gun lobby and its allies willfully lied about the bill. They claimed that it would create some sort of Big Brother gun registry, even though the bill did the opposite.

JUDY WOODRUFF: NRA president David Keene disputed that interpretation.

DAVID KEENE, President, National Rifle Association: Our credibility is the most important thing we have. When we say something, it's because we believe it to be true, and we think the facts and the evidence supports it.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Keene insists the proposed language would have given the federal government broad new powers.

DAVID KEENE: And so an expansion of the system was seen as a way of increasing the database that they could go to instantaneously, if they wanted to. And most of the senators and obviously our members and a lot of our supporters felt that, if they took that step, they were coming much closer to the national registry that a lot of people, including the Justice Department, have said they want.

JUDY WOODRUFF: John Gramlich is the legal affairs reporter for C.Q. Roll Call. He says, even with an increased spotlight, gun control proponents face an uphill battle.

JOHN GRAMLICH, C.Q. Roll Call: They're still emerging. They're still new faces here. They have been vastly outspent over the years in terms of fund-raising, in terms of lobbying, direct lobbying in Congress. And so they're still learning the ropes here.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Whatever the specifics, the gun control fight was familiar to advocates of another era, also fresh from a tragedy that captured the nation’s attention, the 1981 attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan.

His press secretary, James Brady, was critically wounded in the attack. Twelve years later, President Bill Clinton signed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act into law, helping create the National Instant Criminal Background Check System that remains in use today. Less than a year later after that, the federal assault weapons ban was enacted. It would expire in 2004.

Thirty-two years after being shot in the head, Jim Brady remains bound to a wheelchair and has difficulties with his vision. He lives with his wife, Sarah, in Alexandria, Va.

Jim, why does it matter whether gun control legislation passes or not?

JAMES BRADY, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence: We want to stop the carnage, all the killing that's going on.

JUDY WOODRUFF: How do you compare the lobbying that you faced in the 1980s with the passage of the Brady handgun bill with the kind of lobbying that you see going on today?

SARAH BRADY, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence: We did it much more politically, I would guess, than they're trying to do now.

I mean, we actually went in to every district that needed going in to. It was a lot of footwork and individual lobbying in the districts.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you think they should have done that this time?

SARAH BRADY: Well, there wasn't time. It's strange because you hear some people will say, oh, they should have passed it right away, but that is naïveté, because it wasn't going to be able to be passed right away.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Sarah Brady also said she's seen a difference in the gun lobby itself.

SARAH BRADY: They have entrenched themselves more deeply, I will say that, and are much bolder today than they were 20 or 25 years ago.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Reporter John Gramlich points to the center of the gun lobby's political force, the NRA, and its more than four million members.

JOHN GRAMLICH: I mean, they got pretty much everything that they wanted and successfully opposed everything that they didn't want in this current debate. And if they were able to do that after something as horrific as Newtown, then it really raises questions about anyone is able to defeat to them.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But at the state level, the gun lobby has experienced some defeats. Democratic governors in New York, Connecticut and Colorado have all signed tough new gun laws since Newtown, legislation NRA president David Keene says hasn't gone unnoticed.

DAVID KEENE: The biggest threats that we perceive coming against Second Amendment rights are in the states. We have been dividing our focus, shall we say, between the Congress and state legislatures for the last few months.

JUDY WOODRUFF: The NRA has also worked to strengthen gun rights in some states. Despite their loss on Capitol Hill, backers of gun control like Jim and Sarah Brady insist they're not giving up.

JAMES BRADY: Discouragement is a temporary thing. You just saddle up and get back into the fight.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Get back into the fight.

SARAH BRADY: Yes, I think you hardly ever win something without a defeat first.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put consideration of the measure on hold, but said it's only a matter of time before it's brought back for another vote. Opponents like Keene say it will be a long time before that happens.

DAVID KEENE: I think it's dead for this session, probably dead for the next few years in the Senate.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Whenever it comes up, any measure would face potentially tougher odds in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, with both sides promising another round of fierce lobbying.

JEFFREY BROWN: And you can find much more from our comprehensive coverage of the gun debate. There's a link on our home page. 

Watch the NewsHour Thursday for a look at the evolution of gun lobbying efforts on both sides.

Exuding a sense of impenetrable power, the headquarters of the National Rifle Association makes a big footprint along Interstate 66 in Northern Virginia. Its mirrored glass exterior, resembling the shape of an eagle flexing its wings, seems to embody the NRA's bullet-proof lobbying that has stalled any effort to expand federal regulations on gun ownership.

Last week the NRA showed some of its might and muscle when it helped to defeat a bipartisan proposal to require background checks on firearms sales at gun shows and over the Internet.

The deal failed over concerns among single-issue voters that the bill could lead to a federal registry of gun owners.

"[The] NRA has a demonstrated track record of throwing a lot of money in some cases, and potentially being decisive. It also has 4 million members, who are very dedicated, single-issue voters, who the NRA is very good at turning out," John Gramlich, a CQ Roll Call reporter who's been covering the issue, told the NewsHour.

"It was essentially the slippery slope argument and the NRA really pounced on that argument and amplified it and used every opportunity to say that this will lead to a registry,"

Since the December deaths of 20 children in Newtown, Conn., public polling indicates 90 percent of Americans and almost 80 percent of NRA's 4 million members support expanded gun checks. Yet some lawmakers didn't want to risk the potential political backlash of supporting a gun control bill.

"The NRA has rating systems that they use to score lawmakers. Every elected member of Congress is very aware of what their NRA rating is. Some of them care -- many of them care, some of them do not. Usually the ones who do not are from safe Democratic-leaning districts," Gramlich said.

The Sunlight Foundation's Lee Drutman says some lawmakers may have ignored public polling out of concern for what the NRA might do during their next campaign for office.

"Some people might look at Heidi Heitkamp, Democrat from North Dakota who just won a close election, freshman senator -- not up until 2018. The NRA dumped a fair amount of money into her state. They gave $60,000 in independent advertisements in favor of her challenger, Rick Berg. He also got about $12,000 in PAC contributions," Drutman said.

"[S]he barely won. It was a very close election and North Dakota's a small state; if she loses just a handful of single-issue gun voters, who she knows will be riled up by the NRA, because that's what the NRA is very good at doing ... she will have an even tougher time."

How has the NRA -- an organization that donates money to the Boy Scouts and the Girls Scouts -- evolved from its founding in 1871 as an education and training organization into a political force on Capitol Hill and beyond?

"The NRA for a hundred years never spent money on politics. We didn't endorse candidates, we didn't have a lobbyist. We didn't have a legislative arm. That was formed when the cultural wars began," NRA president David Keene told the NewsHour in a recent interview with Judy Woodruff.

"Our legislative arm and our desire to go into this, to the advocacy business, was really at the behest of a number of Democratic congressmen lead by John Dingell of Michigan, who said at that time, you can train all the hunters you want, you can issue all the instructions on safety and gun handling, and run all the competitions, and gun collector shows that you want, but if you don't step up to the plate and defend these rights, none of that's going to matter. And since then, we've done just that."

NRA's focus on lobbying intensified under the leadership of Sandy Froman, who prior to her 2005 election as NRA president, worked for several years to help the organization refocus its efforts supporting members of Congress who shared that view. And the NRA didn't stop there.

"No matter what any elected body says, judges decide what our constitution and Second Amendment mean. So the life or death of firearm freedom comes down to their interpretation these 27 words: a well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," Froman told members at the 2005 annual NRA meeting. She congratulated her organization on its campaign to re-elect George W. Bush and a political campaign that "increased the number of pro-Second Amendment House members and pro-second Amendment Senators in Congress."

Froman, a San Francisco Bay Area native, purchased her first gun at age 32 after an intruder tried to enter her home. She and Dingell, a Michigan Democrat, who has maintained a high NRA rating throughout the half century he has served in Congress, are just a few of the paradoxical elements in this gun fight.

The fight began, says historian Joyce Lee Malcolm, after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

"In the '60s, some groups began challenging whether the founding fathers intended the Second Amendment to grant an individual right or a collective right," Malcolm said.

Not a Fair Fight

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned independent, has been using the vast fortune he has amassed as founder of financial data and media firm Bloomberg L.P. to support candidates who will vote for gun control measures.

He along with Americans For Responsible Solutions, founded by former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband astronaut Mark Kelly, say that they seek to provide political cover for lawmakers.

In one example, a Republican who worked for a GOP president ended up siding with Democrats on the gun control issue. The 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in which former White House press secretary Jim Brady was injured, led to Brady and wife Sarah's eventual endorsement of then-candidate Bill Clinton, who said the he would support what is now the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.

The bill, signed by Clinton in 1993, established a federal background check on firearms sales purchased from licensed dealers. Sarah Brady gives Reagan's backing a lot of credit for the passage of that bill.

"[President Reagan] really supported the Brady law. Called members and lobbied, gave a lot of the Republicans cover. And we were able to pass laws with bipartisan support. A lot of good Republicans voted with us," Brady said in a recent interview with Woodruff.

Over the years Brady has stayed in the fight, advocating for background checks as part of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control advocacy group that in 2001 was renamed honor of Brady and her husband's efforts.

Brady acknowledges that the NRA's ability to support lawmakers and federal judges since the early days of the fight, along with its image, have led to its success. "It's not that they're more powerful. It's that the perception is there. And perception is reality when it comes to many people," Brady said.

In order to have a chance at victory, Drutman says that it hasn't been a fair fight and that the gun control advocates need to redouble their efforts.

"The gun industry has basically had its way with Congress because there's been nobody fighting back." Drutman said. "There are very few issues in American politics that are this one-sided and have been this one-sided for so long in terms of the organized interests that have been involved and the money they've thrown into it."

Michael Fritz contributed to this story.

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Leave it to Barbara Bush to cut through the confusion. When she was asked just before the opening of her son's presidential library whether her other son, Jeb, should run for president, she said no.

And she didn't dance around it, either.

"There are other people out there that are very qualified, and we've had enough Bushes," she told NBC's Matt Lauer.

"He's the most qualified, but I don't think he'll run," she added.

It was the rare direct answer to the 2016 question, and in giving it, Mrs. Bush broke all the rules. Potential candidates (and their mothers) are supposed to play coy, and at the very least claim to be taking a break from politics (see: Hillary Clinton) or serving the people in their current jobs (see: Marco Rubio), even when everyone knows they are plotting.

Plus, there is nothing to be gained in giving direct answers when you have books to sell and lucrative speeches to give. Why answer the questions before you have to?

Barbara Bush's refreshing and familiar directness reminded me of a conversation I had with her son Jeb a few weeks ago.

We were seated on a stage at Guilford College in North Carolina last month with Bill Bradley, the former U.S. Senator from New Jersey. The idea was that we would talk about bipartisanship, and prove that it was possible for leaders from opposite sides of the aisle to disagree on big things without being disagreeable.

But the elephant in the room was 2016. Personally, I'd grown weary of the predictable question that never yielded an answer, and Jeb Bush had clearly grown weary of sidestepping it.

In his appearance on "Meet the Press" the previous Sunday, he'd even accused moderator David Gregory, who asked him to compare himself to fellow Floridian (and fellow potential 2016 aspirant) Rubio, of being a political "crack addict".

So, when we met in North Carolina, Bush opened with a discourse on the need for leadership on the national stage, and then I followed up with this variation on The Question.

"Is it possible to be treated as a leader anymore in our political discourse anymore if you are not interested in running for president -- or at least saying so?"

The audience cracked up.

"That was the trickiest way" of asking the question, Gov. Bush replied. Then he sidestepped. "I think you can have a view on leadership without running for anything," he replied.

It fell to Bill Bradley, who acknowledged that things just don't seem to be working in Washington right now, to be the optimist.

As a country, he said, we have agreed more than disagreed throughout history, especially on the big issues like terrorism. It's the subtle stuff, he said, that trips us up. And the main culpit, according to Bradley, is the corrosive influence of money in politics.

Bush does not blame money, but he does blame the way business is done in the nation's capital.

"Look, I'm not a big Washington fan, because I do believe that successful problem-solving occurs on the state and local level far better than it does in Washington," he said.

But the political system, he said, is us. "Politics is a mirror image of us. It's a circus mirror," he said. "We're much prettier than that, but it's a mirror. We allow it to happen."

Jeb Bush has a book to sell. He is also challenging his own party to reform the immigration system. This puts him, practically alone among the likely 2016 GOP candiates, in a uniquely sticky situation.

"If Jeb Bush was Jeb Bush in a Republican primary and won, the Republican Party would be changed," Bradley said, putting on his political handicappers' hat. "Because right now it is headed in a direction that will be marginalized by the extremes."

Bush steered away from the precipice once again, guiding the conversation into the lack of civic participation. But, weeks before a bipartisan gun control debate collapsed and a bipartisan immigration compromise was thrust into peril, he unwitting acknowledged why it may be difficult for a man who would share the stage with Bill Bradley, a liberal Democrat who himself once ran for president. ("Wisdom is where you find it," Bradley cracked. "And it's even in the Republican Party, sometimes.")

"It's incumbent upon all of us to say, we're going to reward people that take a chance to compromise," Bush said. "That it's not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength."

Doesn't sound like a bumper sticker slogan, does it? Jeb's mother may be on to something.

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President Barack Obama and former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter attend the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

The celebration of George W. Bush's presidential library and museum is over, but the debate over the legacy of the nation's 43rd commander in chief will go on.

All five living presidents were on hand Thursday on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas for the dedication of the 23-acre complex, which also includes a policy institute. And, for a day at least, political differences gave way to warm tributes to the former president from his predecessors and successor.

President Barack Obama praised Mr. Bush's down-to-earth persona. "To know the man is to like the man, because he's comfortable in his own skin," Mr. Obama said. "He knows who he is. He doesn't put on any pretenses. He takes his job seriously, but he doesn't take himself too seriously. He is a good man."

Former President Jimmy Carter commended Mr. Bush for providing humanitarian assistance to African nations. "Mr. President, let me say that I am filled with admiration for you and deep gratitude for you about the great contributions you have made to the most needy people on Earth," Carter said.

Mr. Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, the nation's 41st president, also attended, but in a wheelchair after a recent lengthy bout with bronchitis. "What a beautiful day in Dallas," the elder Bush declared. "It's a great pleasure to be here to honor our son, our oldest son. And this is very special for Barbara and me. And thank you all for coming."

The remarks drew a standing ovation from those in attendance, which included members of Congress, former heads of state and Bush administration officials.

The younger Bush told his father "good job" following the brief remarks, to which the elder Bush responded, jokingly, "Too long?"

Former President Bill Clinton also injected humor into the proceedings, referring to the Bush center as "the latest, grandest example of the struggle of former presidents to rewrite history."

Mr. Clinton went on to compliment the design of the facility, which includes interactive exhibits that enable visitors to examine events Mr. Bush faced as president, such as the financial crisis or Hurricane Katrina, and choose how they would have responded.

"Debate and difference is an important part of every free society. By asking us to join him in the decisions he made and inviting us to make different ones if we choose, he has honored that deepest American tradition," Mr. Clinton said.

Mr. Bush's return to the spotlight more than four years after leaving office has rekindled consideration of his two terms in office and how that time will be remembered in the years to come.

Two editorial pieces in Friday's Washington Post signal just how sharp the divide is on the George W. Bush presidency.

Conservative writer Charles Krauthammer contends that Mr. Bush's creation of the country's anti-terror system will improve his standing as time passes:

Like Bush, Harry Truman left office widely scorned, largely because of the inconclusive war he left behind. In time, however, Korea came to be seen as but one battle in a much larger Cold War that Truman was instrumental in winning. He established the institutional and policy infrastructure (CIA, NATO, the Truman Doctrine, etc.) that made possible ultimate victory almost a half-century later. I suspect history will similarly see Bush as the man who, by trial and error but also with prescience and principle, established the structures that will take us through another long twilight struggle and enable us to prevail.

Eugene Robinson offers a different take, suggesting that Mr. Bush's legacy "looks worse" when matters such as harsh interrogation techniques and the Iraq War are viewed in hindsight:

Bush didn't pay for his wars. The bills he racked up for military adventures, prescription-drug benefits, the bank bailout and other impulse purchases helped create the fiscal and financial crises he bequeathed to Obama. His profligacy also robbed the Republican Party establishment of small-government credibility, thus helping give birth to the tea party movement. Thanks a lot for that.

As I've written before, Bush did an enormous amount of good by making it possible for AIDS sufferers in Africa to receive antiretroviral drug therapy. This literally saved millions of lives and should weigh heavily on one side of the scale when we assess The Decider's presidency. But the pile on the other side just keeps getting bigger.

While some views of Mr. Bush's legacy have already hardened, it is also fair to say that certain aspects of his record are still unsettled. That point was made apparent in Mr. Obama's remarks Thursday when he praised his predecessors push to overhaul the country's immigration system.

"Seven years ago, President Bush restarted an important conversation by speaking with the American people about our history as a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. And even though comprehensive immigration reform has taken a little longer than any of us expected, I am hopeful that this year, with the help of Speaker Boehner and some of the senators and members of Congress who are here today, that we bring it home," Mr. Obama said.

"And if we do that, it will be in large part thanks to the hard work of President George W. Bush," he added.

And that, in turn, will lead historians and others to give a fresh look at the Bush presidency.

On Thursday's NewsHour, Jeffrey Brown spoke with three notable American history scholars: Ellen Fitzpatrick of the University of New Hampshire, H. W. Brands from the University of Texas and our own regular guest, Michael Beschloss.

All three spoke about Thursday's events as well as Bush's place in history among former presidents.

Brands pointed out that historians by default are revisionists, interested in challenging past opinions about important figures. The "best thing" for a president's legacy may be for him to leave office unpopular, Brands said, because "there's no place his reputation could go but up." He added, "In the case of Bush, who left amid the financial crisis 2008 and 2009, really, there's no place his reputation could go but up."

Beschloss agreed, and compared the end of Bush's presidency to former President Lyndon Johnson's with the Vietnam War.

Looking backward to the roadmaps followed by past presidents after office can help in understanding Bush's legacy, but Fitzpatrick looked at more recent news.

"it's poignant that this dedication occurs after this terrible terrorist bombing that just took place in Boston, because his presidency, as the library and museum itself showcases, was deeply affected by the events of Sept. 11 and the terrible tragedy that really overshadowed his presidency ... His legacy is unfolding. And I think that in all likelihood over time, as the opinion polls seem to suggest, there will be greater sympathy to the burden that he bore in trying to come to grips with the worst peacetime attack in American history on the homeland."

Watch the segment here or below:

Beschloss' terrific Twitter feed is the subject of a Washington Post Style section profile by David Beard. The historian credits Christina with getting him to tweet.

Fun fact: When researching this segment, we discovered Beschloss and Brands were two of the eight historians Mr. Obama has summoned to dinner multiple times during his presidency for advice on shaping his own legacy. And Fitzpatrick, a modern American politics historian, wlll see her most recent book, "Letters to Jackie," turned into a movie this year.

For more on presidential libraries, Colleen Shalby put together this nifty quiz.

The day yielded amazing images like this one and these we collected in a slideshow. It provided a chance to put the Bush presidency in historical context.

You can watch all of the speeches from Thursday here or below.

FROM REAGAN TO NEWTOWN: A GUN LOBBYING EVOLUTION

The current president's own legacy was examined this week, by Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press, on the issue of guns. She details in the piece, part of a series on Mr. Obama's campaign pledges, the president's promises on gun control since facing a set of tragedies.

The NewsHour set out to learn how the lobbying efforts on both sides of the gun debate have evolved over the last three decades. Judy Woodruff interviewed NRA President David Keene and Sarah and Jim Brady, whose wounding at the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan prompted the creation of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

"I think you hardly ever win something without a defeat first," Sarah told Judy.

Watch Judy's report, produced by Crispin Lopez and Michael Fritz with help from reporter-producers Cassie M. Chew and Tom LeGro, here or below:

And Cassie puts the piece in context here.

LINE ITEMS

The Senate on Thursday passed a measure to stop flight disruption across the country because of sequestration, sending money to the Federal Aviation Administration and eliminating furloughs for air traffic control workers. Now the House will weigh in.

Also Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., strongly denied that any conversations were happening to exempt members of Congress from the Affordable Care Act exchanges.

And the Senate opted to punt an Internet sales tax measure to after recess.

Emails obtained by BuzzFeed from the "Repeal Coalition" listserv of activists and congressional staffers dedicated to repealing the Affordable Care Act expose a fissure within the conservative movement. Aides to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., of hypocrisy for trying to fix "Obamacare" instead of repealing it outright.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said Thursday he welcomes a pair of immigration reform bills introduced by Republican House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia. He said he wants to see if the measures "offer ideas we can incorporate into the Senate bill as it moves through the amendment process." "Just as our Senate legislation is a starting point for debate, these House measures are important starting points for the debate that will take place there," Rubio said in a statement.

A new television ad from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., "looks like an attempt to single-handedly rebrand the entire Republican Party," writes Hotline editor Reid Wilson.

Florida Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson is thinking about challenging incumbent Rick Scott for the Sunshine State governor's seat in 2014.

More detainees joined the hunger strike at the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Yes, former South Carolina governor and current congressional candidate Mark Sanford really did debate a poster of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

And after Sanford listed his cell phone number in a full page newspaper ad over the weekend, House Majority PAC reprinted the number in a fundraising email. Sanford's campaign has now released a screengrab of his phone showing those folks who have called.

Virginia GOP Gov. Bob McDonnell won't comment on the embezzlement case against his former chef at the government's mansion or the chef's accusation that McDonnell's adult children hoarded food and booze from the mansion's kitchen.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has endorsed Sanford's campaign for the 1st Congressional District.

Meanwhile, House Majority PAC is spending in the race, putting this attack ad against Sanford. It was developed in partnership with VoteVets, which is sharing the cost.

MinnPost has launched a nifty Minnesota legislation tracker web app.

Over at the Daily Beast, James Kirchick dives deep into the newly opened "Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity."

BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner writes that the American Civil Liberties Union and some LGBT legal organizations are arguing "a key religious exemption in new legislation banning anti-LGBT job discrimination 'undermines the core goal' of the bill and should be removed."

Is America ready for a female president? "Absolutely," Sandra Day O'Connor told the Los Angeles Times' Mark Z. Barabak.

For the obsessed, here's a super-early poll of New Hampshire 2016 primary voters.

A little trivia for you: Which Democrat holds the easternmost congressional district? Maine's Mike Michaud. And the Republican? New York's Peter King, but "not for long," joked DCCC chair Steve Israel at National Journal Hotline's Political Pursuit. Congrats to Team Press Pass for winning Thursday night!

NEWSHOUR ROUNDUP

Judy Woodruff explains what it felt like to witness the Boston bombing from 5,000 miles away. That's in Judy's Notebook.

Gwen Ifill looks at Barbara Bush's comments on the NBC's "Today" show Thursday, noting, "It was the rare direct answer to the 2016 question, and in giving it, Mrs. Bush broke all the rules. " That's in Gwen's Take this week.

Here's part four of Kwame Holman's conversations with a former INS commissioner, which looks at H-1B visas.

While supporters of same-sex marriage far outnumbered protesters outside the U.S. Supreme Court last month, Simone Pathe takes a closer look at why demonstrations against same-sex marriage in France have been so large and more violent.

TOP TWEETS

Congratulations George and Laura on opening @thebushcenter. Proud Hillary and I could be here. twitter.com/billclinton/st...

— Bill Clinton (@billclinton) April 25, 2013

RT @jennabushhager One of the cutest, sweetest men I know, loves a good sock! Happy to be with family! twitter.com/JennaBushHager...

— TheBushCenter (@TheBushCenter) April 25, 2013

George H.W. Bush wore a vineyard vines tie at the Presidential Center dedication today! Lookin' good, Mr. President! twitter.com/vineyardvines/...

— vineyard vines (@vineyardvines) April 25, 2013

And so it begins...Hillary 2016 bumper sticker today on car driving along crucial I-4 outside of Orlando. twitter.com/jasonaltmire/s...

— Jason Altmire (@jasonaltmire) April 25, 2013

Took the political team out for breakfast today to thank them for being awesome. Proud boss!... instagram.com/p/YiwGAtok9d/

— Christina Bellantoni (@cbellantoni) April 25, 2013

Had a guest editor today. He came in for bring your kids to work day: j.mp/ZvZBHmtwitter.com/DWStweets/stat...

— D Wasserman Schultz (@DWStweets) April 25, 2013

Take your kid to work day - twitter.com/emilyprollcall...

— Emily Pierce (@emilyprollcall) April 25, 2013

Roseanne Barr was on the ballot in the presidential election in 3 states. Huh. esquire.com/blogs/culture/...

— Katelyn Polantz (@kpolantz) April 25, 2013

In D.C. to perform at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Practicing my opening "Goofy Sunglasses" bit: bit.ly/15RpxA2

— Conan O'Brien (@ConanOBrien) April 25, 2013

Katelyn Polantz and politics desk assistant Simone Pathe contributed to this report.

For more political coverage, visit our politics page.

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Questions or comments? Email Christina Bellantoni at cbellantoni-at-newshour-dot-org.

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Iraqi dancers from a ballet and music school perform Thursday at al-Ribat Hall in Baghdad during an annual production marking the end of the school year. Photo by Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images.

Charles Lloyd performs at the 2008 Souillac Jazz Festival in France. Photos by mpix46 via Flickr.

Saxophonist Charles Lloyd is celebrating his 75th birthday year with grand concert celebrations, and he continues to tour and record, including a new duet album with pianist Jason Moran titled "Hagar's Song."

I recently talked to Lloyd at his home in Santa Barbara, Calif., just before he left for a European tour:

JEFFREY BROWN: I was at that Washington concert recently, a wonderful concert. I wonder, how does it feel for you at 75 with these celebrations? Are you enjoying yourself, or some trepidation? How is it?

CHARLES LLOYD: Very much so. It's very touching for me, because the youngster in me is still alive and kicking. I was infected by music at a very young age, so it's always kept me younger than springtime. I'm very blessed in spirit, and fortunately my health is good at this time. I'm looking upon it as being in service, and it's amazing. You were there at the concert in Washington at the Kennedy Center, and it was amazing to see that place full of people.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yep, it sure was. It was in the big theater, too.

CHARLES LLOYD: Yes, the big one, yeah, 2,400, 2,500 seats. And then we played a week before that at Harvard, and we played Princeton, and we played a big concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Temple of Dendur, which was a very beautiful experience. I'm very blessed, I'm really thankful.

JEFFREY BROWN: I was at that Washington concert recently, a wonderful concert. I wonder, how does it feel for you at 75 with these celebrations? Are you enjoying yourself, or some trepidation? How is it?

CHARLES LLOYD: Very much so. It's very touching for me, because the youngster in me is still alive and kicking. I was infected by music at a very young age, so it's always kept me younger than springtime. I'm very blessed in spirit, and fortunately my health is good at this time. I'm looking upon it as being in service, and it's amazing. You were there at the concert in Washington at the Kennedy Center, and it was amazing to see that place full of people.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yep, it sure was. It was in the big theater, too.

CHARLES LLOYD: Yes, the big one, yeah, 2,400, 2,500 seats. And then we played a week before that at Harvard, and we played Princeton, and we played a big concert at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Temple of Dendur, which was a very beautiful experience. I'm very blessed, I'm really thankful.

JEFFREY BROWN: You mentioned getting the bug early in your youth. What was it?

CHARLES LLOYD: I was born in Memphis. There was music all around me, really deep and special music. I heard all these great masters at a young age. Then there would be late-night radio, and then I'd hear Billie Holiday and Lester Young and Charlie Parker and all of that music. Then there was a great genius in my town, Phineas Newborn, who is one of the greatest pianists ever on the planet. He took me under his wings at about 9 and he put me on the right track. I played an amateur show, I won first prize, and I went into the wings and there was this guy, 16, standing there. He said, you need lessons bad. So illusions of grandeur were nipped in bud. He took me around the corner on Beale Street to a great musician, Irvin Reason, and he knocked on his door and he left me there. So all my life I'm trying to go forward and trying to grow. It is a music of freedom and wonder. It's our indigenous art form, and I'm still blessed to travel around the world and people lay out the carpet for us, so it's quite touching.

JEFFREY BROWN: I was thinking about this at the concert, because you had the Greek singer Maria Farantouri, a different sort of genre, and I know you had your period playing with the Beach Boys. Do you think about, I don't know, jazz as one thing or different genres -- does it matter to you what you are playing?

CHARLES LLOYD: I think when you love music, you love a lot of it. Now when it comes to jazz, it's very much in the hyperions of height. You go exploring every night. With our indigenous music, you have slaves being brought to these shores and they had something, and the song blossomed here. The mixture of European harmonies and such and the rhythms of Africa and that beautiful melodic thing. For me, I was always moved by all of the music. As a young man, Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton, Count Basie and all these great musicians would come through our town of Memphis. There wasn't adequate hotels, so these musicians -- the lady who ran the theater knew my mother, who had a large house, and many of them would stay with us. So that was another great blessing, so I'm always around these great geniuses, and to realize their humanity is such a touching thing. Mentioning Maria Farantouri, she's someone who I found late in life, maybe 10 or 12 years ago. When I heard her sing, it affected me like those light-night radio shows with Billie Holiday, where I'd be drunk with the idea that she was singing to me and I'd better get to New York soon and marry her and take care of her. So I hear Maria Farantouri singing a different song at a different time, but it touched my heart in that same kind of way. But as to answer your question, lines of demarcation don't really interest me as much as quality.

JEFFREY BROWN: Let me ask you about the latest recording, the one with Jason Moran, a beautiful, beautiful album, by the way. I've been listening to it quite a bit myself. You've done this a lot where you play in a duo setting. You like that?

CHARLES LLOYD: This thing with Jason, you know, I found out about my great, great grandmother a year or two ago that she at 10 years old had been taken from her parents in the south of Mississippi and taken up to Bolivar, Tenn., and sold for $300 into slavery, and this slave owner impregnated her at 14. It just tore my heart apart. This thing affected me so much. Jason and I are very close, and he plays in my quartet with Eric Harland and Reuben Rogers also. What happened was that I just had to somehow express something about -- an homage to my ancients and to my elders. She lived in the early 1800s. But I also mixed it up with these Ellingtonians, Billy Strayhorn's "Pretty Girl" and Ellington's "Mood Indigo." Jason Moran's wife was in "Porgy and Bess" on Broadway, so I paid homage to her. I played "Bess, You Is My Woman Now." I even played a Beach Boys song. And Levon Helms had died, and I played "I Shall Be Released," because he was a dear friend and I knew them up in Woodstock. So it was an unfolding. You know, my music just pours out of me. So it was time to record and that playing in duo is really rare. Jason and I have done it in Maine and in Europe and in a lot of different places, but it's kind of rare. The interesting thing is you're naked, you just have to have this deep simpatico, and we have that. He's a great soul and a great musician, as are all these musicians. I think that music makers just really bless the planet. It's a beautiful thing.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, it is a wonderful recording. Once again, happy birthday. And I hope the celebration goes on and the touring continues forever and ever. Charles Lloyd, it's great to talk to you. Thanks so much.

CHARLES LLOYD: Thank you. And thank you for all you do for us, because us sensitives out here need you, too.

JEFFREY BROWN: I appreciate that. Thank you all for joining us again on Art Beat. I'm Jeffrey Brown.