>> hello, i'm llewlyn king, host of "white house chronicle," whi is coming right up, but rst, ifour thoughts of my

own. as you can see, i'm reading the newspar about the possibility of an asteroid striking the earth. chaos ensues and change everything. of course, how didhey know that? how did the newspaper fd out the department of the government told them. but re is the rub, and it really is rub -- what do we nt the govnment to do, and how much government do we want? it is not an easily answered question. we allo bieve the government is too b and is getting gger all the time. if y live in washington,ou know government emoyees do not do their work or do not do the work they shld. and yes, we,he public, the consumer want more government. we want the vernment to tell the chanc of bei struck by an asroid. we want them to ean up the

litter. we want the government to do someing about people trapped on airanes. we want the government to do something about swine flu. we want the goverent to protect us both physically and ineasingly in re subtle ways against disease, climatic change. it is very difficult issue what do we want theovernment to do. if we ask people, they're mostly say they want the governme to stop doing all these things that do not affect us and start doing these things. i'll give youn example -- bananas are dying out. bees, littlhoney bees, w only have about half as my as we used t but we need them, becauseithouthem, there is no food. we have endangered spees in the waterways that are changi the nature of thos watways and the aquatics live them. but arthese your concerns?

if they are, you what the government to do something about it. if youhink that is oy, then you do not. it is a hd call. the problem is not how my things the government does, t how many things -- how many under perfming people it uses to do it maybe w should wk on using - mang government mor efficient rather than making it smaller. i havone of the most important oadcasters in america we are going to me bk and have atriking conversation. >> "whe house chronicle" is curtisn collaboration with whutt, howard university

television. now, the program hosts, nationally syndicated columst llewellyn king, ando-host, linda gasparello. >> hello again, and thank you for coming alo. i promid you one of the people i admire in wasngton journalism, d here he is -- bob scranton. you probably remember him fro more than 20 years on cnn. -- herhe is -- bob frken. his real genius, ihink, has been kept from many o you, it as a writer. you can read him now politicsdailcom. you can look iup on thweb. i promise you wl be enrtained and enlightened. welcome to the show. tell me what it is likeo be a television correspondent it is thought of as alamorous thin

is it glamors? >> i thinkou could take one look at me and see justow unglamorous it is. is actually quite bit of tedium. i think most people forget telesion the job of journali is the tedium of getting information right, the tedium of waing -- >> awaiting i can attest to. >> not to say at is not exciting. used to telleople that it be grwing up, and i thinke should continu to tell people we should be out there pying and doing things that other people just in be hestly realize th before we go out and ha all the excitement, we have massive amounts of time getti ready. it bothers me when see some of t very you people on some of the television networksho just cant have had the timeo learn thei trade, and how do you learyour trade? by mtakes.

>> it is funny. sam donalds is someone i know thatoth ofs admire. he sai that when hwas coming up in the business, he was trying to knock over somef those who were morexperienced. now ose of us more experienced are exriencing the same thing. i'mnclined to say there are people who are natural journalists -- smart, adaptive, this type of thing -- of any age. i wcome a serious person out there. >>inaudible] ople have opinions abou politics at every lev. maybe there is moreense of participation. ere is certainly mor publishing about politics than i ever remembe. we dissect and stued the most the smallestinutia [inaudib] which only makes it harder for a politician to eress a casual thought. you think we overdo the

political covege? >> i do not thinke overdo the effect of political covege. however, whai think has happed is a lot of the journalism has been reaced by nois. -- i d not think we over the effect is -- -- effectiv political covera. they had decided it is caper to put our peoe and just yell. is more effective to use all yourools in ways that people are going to be able toelate to. >> y and i are able to just write to radio. more about that later. we do also. [inaible] york quite uque in that you writas well as y broadcast. -- you are quite uniquen tt

you writas well abroadcast. and as someone whot simply was not h skill set. he wa wonderful onelevision, buthe written word was not a skille had acquired is this common? >> i thihat there a a numb really good rights in televisn. the point that would make i that in tevision, you must write eiciently. there n be no fallo -- no flab in the right thing. every word truly matters. i think that is rlly important skl. it really can me forood, entertaini, vigorous writing that people are going to appreciate. >> do you think newspapers get it wrongpeople likeyself in 50 years, following an model writing that at least tri to

be fair -- the word objective is hard to abide by, but there i not. naudible] and then along comes the internet, and wh do we find? we find tt people want sothing cversational, casual, intimate, personal, and subjective. >> the subjectpart is the part i have rned a lot. -- the subje is the - suective part. i notind it when its labeled at way. what i dmind is that there are any number of people out there presenting themselveas journalists, presenting themselves as someon who can provide e context and fairness or at least try to, but they do not. all they dos they spew out the particular point of view, and they try to singo their

enquir, and quite frankly, they do quite well with it. -- they tried to sing toheir own choirs. >> this m surprise to our viewers andisteners to hear thatost journalists are prly id, especially in print. therefore, you do not get the best minds going into journasm. ran a publishing company for manyears, and we would have interest every year,nd the best and brightest would say that they love journalis bu they areoing to bliars because ty want to make some money. even in big city newspapers, theyre not fantastic. the occasional pern who makes a lot of mon on television -- that is quitehe excepon. it is not the norm. >> it is something you have t

believ in. many of the corporate owners of newspapers, televisn networks and local telesion stations do not understand that there is a mindset that is vital to reporting. you have to have is mine said -- mindset of your mother says she loves you, check it out. if you areot a skeic, you have no business in journalism. at is clas on either side. any time that somebody advocates,t is jus instinct itor me to say "yes, but" and that is whate should dfor a livi. >> whenou have a long story denouncinghe environment protection agencfor not enforcingrules, andight a the bottom, ey will say, "a spokesman for the agey said." in what we us to call the meanwhile paragph.

one from column a, one from lumn b, and you will make yo mind up. l's tal about ourselves. >> i like talking about myself. >> what about the psident? energetic, likable, funny and perchance inrouble? >> i don't think anybody expected the honeymoon to last. i don'think that anye expected people toemember forever the bushdministration anthe contrast that he had ovided peere -- the contras that he had provided. stding on his own 2 feet. the esident's alws is. this is a man standing in the middle of everything,nd when things go wron guess who is th man thaeveryone focuses on? the president of e united states. he also brings the focu on

himself because he is his own spokesman. he is ways on the road or in the west ro or the east room in front of the cameras tking for himself, r his role administraon. when somethi goes wrong, it reboun immediately to him. >> i think that people like him in that regard to ronal reagan, who called himlf -- was call the great communicator barack obamai hope when h is througwith being president, consider as being an anchor man. he would be in really gooone. the man does a great le shot. who elswould you put out tre to be the person who spes for his administration? >> has got a lot of messy issues. what to do with russia. what to do with pakistan. iraq, on d on. israel

and he has some big, messy problems. hethcare, will lose, loomi over thet --ooming immigration. an iigration incenses t same people tha are incensed by the idea of nationalized health care, but he cannot really subdue them on emration. you haveo have immigtion policy. >> t tragedy of that is suca volatile issue will be coming up in an election year. what is widely shared isthat nothing ever really gets done during an electi year, so it isot going t be given e consideration it is going need next year, i believe. probably, itill last untilhe next year afte that,ut for getting immigraon, which is in anof itself a csuming kind

of issue, we have a ecomy that may be scratchg itself out of t deep morass' it was in at e start of the administration. we havehe start of this alth-care change that the president has decided he wants to make theignature of his adminiration, so we have those issues. >> [inaudible] nobody can underand it or ally wants to. >> trap and trades a lovely little expressn, but when yo start looking at all the exceptions, your eyes glaze er -- cap nd trade is a lovely little expression. we have no been talked about the iernational situations. remember iraq? it is still tre, and there are going to be some b decisions madebout theithdrawal of u.s. troops anwhat ileft bend? is it going to revert t bng another yugosvia or somhing like that whe pple would ask

why we're there in the rst place? >> you havsome ver angry people. see at the town hall meetgs. we hear it othe radio and in mmentary. where re theduring the elecon? they are essentially sayin and you can hear it in any of these town hall meetings, that the are disenfranised, that they are not listened to, ahough there wereo elections last year. isn't that a bit odd? >> last year, what we saw was the victory of "change you can believe in. that was how barack oma ran. i think the people who are not necearily his iological soulmateare seeing change they do not believe i add to that the theor is

absolutely irratiol about wh is happening to r country, whats happeni to our onomy, what is more importantly happening t indivual lives that is all abou control there iso worse fling that feeling out control, and i ink that is really motivatg a lot ofeople. >> i mentionedhe difficulties of government. we want more. we want ss. thes are very strong held feelings inost of us. we did n -- we wa less governmen we do not want any more stupid forms. weo not want the government knowing when we get up and where we go to bed, where we buy ou gasoline, etc. we do notant them readin our mail. imagine the poor government ployee that reads our e-mail exchanges e-mail. they wld nee medical treatment. buwe also, i think all of u feel helpless.

i have bee trying to get at to cancel service, d they keep sendg me to someone else, and after 10 mines of punching in numbers, i get fed up, and they sende anoth bill, and the service does not get changed. we menoned on ts program last week pele tpped on airplanes, whichs a unconscionable siation. the lar coany, the airlis do it for their convenience. for no other reason -- their convenience. five and a half hours in one instance. toilet overflowed. ying babies. fothe convenience of an airlin they keep you on the plane. in any other situation, there would be hauled f to jail for kidnapping. we feel very hopels. i am unfortunaly in credit- ca debt at the moment. i sold a business. look at the bill the her day. if i were to run up my credit

card, they wod charge me 34% intest. they used take peopl to the jail house forhat. even the friendly loan shark i knew at the washgton daily newsould say that was pushing it. people will say thatou can call them,ut it takesou a very long te to get through to a human being w may note in this countr not spathetic to your case, and i think we extend e frustration that we finin every aspect of our lives to th government. >> i think you u a very fective phrase -- inact, i intend t plaarize it. forcesut of our control. you a welcome to it. [inaudible] [laughter] >> but all the examples you

cited were not government. they wererivate enterprise. i knowou did it on purpose, and i ink that what you d see is that peop just have this eling that this amorphous -- the term is oligarchy -- really controlsverything. it is all out of contl. you mentioned earlier about asteroids. the way, do you hav any information we should know about this? >> and subtly, the government can tell you if theyre coming. >> maybe prite enterprise shld come up with a nional asteroid roval company, and the government could bcontract. a prive company could then outsourced anybo who comains -- >> nobody complains. when they complain about the government, they dnot complain wheree have private government, they dnot complain wheree have private companies who

bizarr charges becausehey

need t money toeep functiong becse they are supposed to provide theharity that people need who have no money. >> and add to that t iurance compans that are also four profit that oftentimes ll not pay a large part of that bi so the individual is bankrupt it, alst, by the charges. at is theystem that exts in the unitedtates today, ich is a great segueo the health care reform bill goin on. >> igoing to go on. there willrobably bvery little maj reform. probablyome tampering down of the insurers who may beetter off because they are forced to pick of youn people, the old people -- remember, they lose them at 55 to medicare.

we have two very effective government healthcarsystems -- 3, really, and two a very effective. va and medcare, but theare ry expensive, especlly medicare. i'm on medicare, and i can see the way money is spent in my own case. >> there is medicaid. >> left that out becau there are more argents about that. >> tt one is in partnership with the state, but in addition, you have the various research institutes that are federall administered no run - >> that is a goodubject. we are td by the pharmaceical industry that they need vast profitsbecause they do so much resear. what are they ing at nih? are they not doing rearch?

>> the research oftentis by the armaceuticals is suspect because it is aimed at getting a oductpproved that is one that they want to sell. and we know of many instances whe those projects have proven to be dangerous and that the pharmaceutical companies kne of that ahead of time. we need to talk about t fundental discussion ofhe role of o health-care system at we want to -- a role in our health-care system tt we what the government to ay. it is about 35% now. the real aument is over that other 65%. >> tell me someing about the world toy or america today th makes you glad. > i'm glad th the president is goio martha's neyard. i think that is justs well as can be. >> really?

[inaudible] and tre he is ruing shoulders wi the bankers who t the huge bonuses when many of us feel they were notitled to bonuses bause they ran the financial systeinto the ground. >> exct you are saying that allhe bank as good a martha's vineyard they go just abo everyere. a very powful banker frid of mineas a place in s.i. -- >> [audible] >> another enclave, but should he go tohicago? >> [inaudible] essentially fro massachusetts flori. wonderful beaches. i recommended it on this progm last week. i will tell yo something that i found very cheering -- setimes something ppens to just make me fl extraordinarily goo about this count. that was a f weeks ago when

ll clinton was instrumental in getting back two amecan journasts. they were both of asian descen but they talkedbout being glad be home. they talked about life as an american, and peopltalk aut being is kind of american that kind of american. they talkeabout how this is a greacountry. we really can come up with a common view. and feelood when it happens. >> one could arguehat the electionf barack oama as presidentas an illtration of that. at the same time, however -- first of all, i shou say that when someone asks that the glass is half-empty or hf full, i ask what glass? on the half anthe side, i woulsay that at the same time we have what you described, we still have a lot of racial and

etic separation in this country. we cling to it. justs daging, we have this econom disparity that not ing held. if >> that is our prram for today. i'm so gd bob frankenoins me. has been a pleasure. we wl join you xt week, same station, same tim in the mntime, have a great vacation. all the best. eers. captioned the national captioning instute --www.ncicaprg-- >> "ite house conicle is produced in collaboration wi whut, or universy television. fr wasngton, d.c this has been "ite house conicle" --

a ekly analysis of the news with insig and a sense of humor, fearing llewellyn king and linda gaspallond guests. thisrogram may be seen on pbs stations and cable access channels