>> "white house chronicles" is produced in collaboration with captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> good day, i'm llewellyn king, the host of "white house chronicles" which is coming right up. but first a few thoughts on my own. actually more experience. it's about growing old. but don't worry about it. it doesn't grow gradually, it becomes back all at once. i grew old in one second on a railway station in baltimore when i was buying a ticket and the nice lady at the office looked and me and said you get the senior discount don't you? i assumed she was talking to somebody behind me.

there was nobody there. then i knew. and after that, i started to expect people in trains and buses to give me their seats. the only sad thing about it is it doesn't help with lust. i heard don rowe the chairman and chief executive officer of a huge utility in chicago giving a speech here in washington. somebody asked him what company he lusted to buy next. but he said i'm 64 and lust is a big problem. of course it is. you lust, and they want you to be interesting. you know that you pasted the age when you're chatting to somebody you lust. and the lust is present. and this delightful person says you're so interesting. then you realize that you are indeed entitled to the senior

discount. i have a wonderful program for you today, we're going to do something a bit different. we're going to complain. we're going to bitch. that's right. about everything that dissatisfies people. you will enjoy it i'm sure. we'll be right back. >> "white house chronicles" is produced in collaboration with whut, howard university television. and now, your program hosts, nationally syndicated columnist llewellyn king, and co-host linda gasparello. >> hello again, thanks so much for coming along. here are my staff, my crew of complainers. linda gasparello of this program. an italian-american complainer. and of course, complaint himself, bob bob, syndicated

columnist, some of you saw him doing a very fine job on msnbc during the health care dede bait, i heard you were there for 11 hours. >> that's right. >> and of course, the chief complainer for the purposes of this broadcast, the lovely julie mason of "the washington examiner." and welcome all to complaints. i have complaints about everything. mostly large institutions that dump on us one way or the other. banks with their charges, telephone companies that don't seem to have computers because they cannot give you a telephone number. you know your newspaper, i tried to get the number. i told them where it was physically located. no, we don't have it. i said do you have google? no, we don't have google.

well, i read the newspaper i can see it in back on the news. what are you complaining about today linda? >> well, as you've introduced me as an italian-american i will do a really loud complaint. eating at restaurants is a luxury for many people these days. when you go to a restaurant you expect wonderful service. well, we have lost the idea of what service really wonderful service is about. wonderful service is not about telling you your life story when i sit down to the table. wonderful service is not about pulling my plate away before my guest has finished their dinner. and then asking me did you like your food? how was it? it's just -- it's so sad to see what happens. >> i do second this. you sit in a restaurant, some person comes up and says my name

is julie and i'm your server. so i look up and say i'm mr. king and i'm your customer. the jury is about to tell you that she's not really a server at all, that she's study psychology at the community college, and is just doing this because she's forced to do this, which you know sort of really does things to the appetite. >> it does. >> bob bob? >> well, first of all, i think you're being ingrates a little bit here because you're complaining about somebody who actually shows up at your table. quite frankly, i'll take bad service over no service, which is what you get these days, whether it's in restaurants. or time to call an 800 number. when it comes time to frankly

complain to a news medium about anybody. service is almost nonexistent. and if it is, something some technical company will say we'll be there within an eight hour window. i make the joke about comcast taking over nbc, where their programming grids are going to be that next program will be on the air sometime within a four hour window on friday night. >> i didn't know there was anything worth watching on comcast. but that's true, television somebody once said that it takes you half an hour to find out there's nothing you want to watch on television, where as you used to be able to do it in few minutes. >> julie, what makes you mad studying the light on this earth? >> nothing but darkness. i'm getting discussion of panel discussions on the future of the media. >> oh! >> i'm so sick of it. the future of the news media

will take care of it. it is just a mess right now. but yet another panel discussion about it. first of all, who would agree to participate, and second of all? who would attend? who cares? >> i'm deeply sorry that no one has asked you to be on such a show. >> if there was renumeration i might consider, however, however, the future of the news media. i mean the news media is in a terrible state. obviously a matter of grave concern. but sitting around and jaw-boning, there are only two things you can say. it will get worse or better. >> we have no idea. >> and the answer is no idea. because, technology has always dominated news. they forget technology changed news, normally. >> the radio. >> the radio changed news, television changed news. glossy paper changed news. there's an interesting story

about a magazine, it was on news print traditionally and it has revenues about $150 million a year. i read they went to glossy paper, the advertisers liked it better, it went to $300 million a year. that in a sense is technology, glossy paper. technology's is going to dominate. now we have this proliferation of technologies. i'm turning this into a discussion. i hope you don't walk it. linda, tell me something else that makes you mad? >> words. misuse of words. and words that have taken on evil connotations. mainstream is one of them. mainstream is perfectly fine word. but mainstream to fox news is not a fine word. democrat. whatever happened to the democratic party? why are we calling it the democrat party?

that's right! because it is not democratic. it is democrat. >> i saw, i was in the president's motor cade last week, we were going to the hill and he was going to talk to the house democratic caucus. i saw a man on the sidewalk waving the american flag, and i've become so brainwashed by recovering republicans, i felt that waving a flag at obama was a slam. >> what about the white house makes you mad? >> that's like a whole separate show. bringing in -- having no photographs, and still holding them down as open, transparent and accountable. >> this is not unique to this white house. every white house gets too big for its britches in my opinion. when it comes to what is supposed to be the fundamental

part of a democracy, which is openness. and everybody mouths the words, but everyone tries to bully people, tries to intimidate them, tries to hide things, tries to control news that is not absolute propaganda for whatever their cause is, that type of thing, and we're seeing it in this change you can believe in white house. >> the difference now is they hold themselves up to a higher standards and they hold themselves out to be better than the last guy, when really they're the same. >> it's not new to this white house. i like to remind white house staffers, most of whom are about 12 years old, that you're only working for the white house. it's not like you're important like a garbage collector or something. >> i'll give you my white house beef. my white house beef is timing. briefings by chance or appointment, you simply cannot have briefings that are scheduled that we're told about are going to be noon then decide to hold them at 3:30. that is absolutely unacceptable.

>> why is he so bad at time? obviously the bush people made a point of being on time. but when it came to press briefings, clinton's people were not bad. but this is a a joke. >> robert, in addition to being spokesman for the president is special assistant to the president. he is in the room when obama is doing things. he's much closer to obama than any of the previous press secretaries were. >> i think mike mccarty was fairly close. i watched them on several trips with the clinton administration. you could see they were banging each other, laughing, sharing a joke, probably an off-color joke. >> let me just make a point about that administration. there was somebody in that administration who was always exceedingly late. none other than the president himself. i have a very scornful theory about people like robert gives

or bill clinton or others who are always that kind of late, and it is that they are passive agressive. they have all kinds of simmering recentment and they make people wait. it's a power trip. as i say, the scorn should be dripping from my lips because i hate people in real life who are like that. i have 15 minute rule with people. i think that the best thing the white house press core can do to robert gives is if he -- >> bob, i take it you have not seen a doctor in years? [laughter] >> well, obama's late for everything too. one, he has complete disregard for other people's time, which i don't think is very true. or his staff cannot keep him on schedule. which does team to be a problem. >> for the benefit of our listeners on sirius x.m. radio. the program is "white house chronicles," a little offbeat. we're talking about things that make us mad this week. the panel is myself, llewellyn king, linda gasparello, bob bob,

a frequent guest on msnbc, and julie mason, of "the washington examiner." one of the great joys to have around the white house. because although she may be complaining today, she is very joyful and cheers us up while we're waiting at the white house. waiting for a briefing which we will then learn nothing whatsoever anyway. i must say this thing about the white house, for those of us who don't have offices that are not in the basement or little booths, and who come for the briefings, it just destroys your day. >> you can't leave your grounds if you don't have a hard pass. >> well, i have a hard pass. it means they can't get clear to come in. >> at all times you need a good novel which gives me something i'm angry about.

why are there no pocketbooks anymore that can fit in your pocket? everybody when i was a boy had a book in their pocket. it was as common as saying how are you? say, what are you reading? but now, even the soft cover ones don't fit in your pocket. of course the hard cover ones never did. now i'm forced to force books into them. >> you're going to have to talk to the book sellers about that. because anybody who has ever sold a book, when you've got a larger surface area you get more attention. >> i know a little bit about this. i used to publish books in new york many years ago. it's call full covered display. mostly you don't get it, so don't worry about it! if you go to the book stores, you see the spine. you've got to be a mega best seller like tom clancy. >> all right, basketball. >> do you know the word kindle? or, brace yufse, ipad?

>> these are bitter things you say to me because i sat down with a friend of mine to reinvent the book and all i could come up with was a binding. and of course i didn't think technology. >> one of the characteristics we were talking about was technology before. one of the characteristics is na it's always a surprise. certainly a surprise of those who are entrenched in the current system, which by the way i think is what has made it so harmful to media. nobody expects that there's going to be an internet that suddenly comes, or even computers. all those things that have occurred in our lifetimes. chances are as we sit here and the panels sit there and discuss the future of the media, you know, they have no idea what technology's going to come along that is suddenly going to make all the concepts that we're being discussed. >> the julie will forgive me in a mention about journalism, we are very controversy about our

own trade. there are three newspapers in washington, two of them controversy, one might be called mainstream and liberal has disappeared entirely. we think the way we've learned this trade and the way we've hammered it into the young people who work with us is the way it will always be. which is why newspapers look roughly the same way they did 150 years ago. we've taken the periods off the headlines. of course the technology comes along and makes all that we know obsolete. i was a whiz at "the pennsylvania post" and other places. it was great putting newspapers together. now it's done on computers. >> that makes you mad doesn't it? >> it makes me mad because i

thought i would end up on the copy desk. you know what that used to be like. a friend of mine turned to another friend of mine and said mary, look at the copy desk. it's despair. i was hoping to join there. >> you bring up one of my ultimate pet peeves. this is taking on corporate america. you talk about copy desks. what are they? the papers basically said oh, we don't need copy editors. they get in the way of the profits. >> i know where you're going. >> here's where it's going. we don't need to provide service. we don't need to provide a camera crew on broadcast television. we can have one minnesota bands do it. they all talk about hey, you have to multitask. have i got an idea for all of them. you want to multitask? why do we need a c.e.o., a c.f.o., a c.o.o. and a chairman

of the board? what do these guys do anyway? >> they go to lunch. >> they go to lunch. >> no, no, they also take the company airplane. >> my point is that there is a complete disregard for providing solid service and living up to the responsibility of an institution like the journalistic institutions in the name of the quarterly report. and that is possibly one of my ultimate pet peeves. >> one of mine, i'm sure it's shared is the great deal of companies that have automated telephone systems, which is all of them. i spent an hour trying to find the right person. if it's something that really the bank should not have been involved in, an insurance claim that the bank had to sign off on, i sent it to the bank, it went to the wrong place in the bank. nobody had heard into it. i went into a local branch and they spent an hour on the telephone trying to find the right people because they didn't

have any better. it is awful, it is a terribly distractive thing. it takes all our time as if it is of no value and it's to save a few dollars when they could have a switchboard operator. >> back to you julie. >> can i bring it back to politics? phony brip. aren't you sick of it? it's crazy! president bush did the same thing. he set a bar for bipartisanship, means the democrats should do what he wanted, and that was his standard of bipartisanship. obama is doing the same thing, now we have everybody doing it. nobody wants bipartisanship. it's now all the extremes and no one's going to work together, it's crazy, the voters say, and this is another part of phony bipartisanship, they want cooperation. no they don't! leave it alone. >> why did we fight the american

revolution? we're getting the system that we really wanted all the time. >> the riffraff of government, really. that's it. one of my favorite moments of recent time was the speech on the house of representatives closing out the health care debate where he was cursing, where his fellow republicans were shouting. >> shame on you! shame on us. >> i was like, these are the people i'm supposed to revere. wow, this is great. i'm seeing like it is. >> it's pretty fun. >> absolutely. it reminds you of parliament. >> it does. >> one of the things i remember from the house of common sense is sit down you fat-faced twit! that was a high point in the debate. >> and i heard sit down you ghastly windbag. >> see, we can't even do the american translation of those on family television. >> it's not all high-minded quoting the classics at each other at all.

>> we spent a lot of time here and no one has discussed the cell phone or texting. >> well, please feel free. can i give you my cell phone? >> all right. >> have a prop. >> i listen to my cell phone, i've got two in use, i've got my telephone. no one wants to talk to me. nobody wants to talk to me directly. they want to text me. i think you can learn a lot on a telephone. you know? you can get all sorts of information on a telephone when you talk to somebody. you can further the conversation. this cannot be done as well on a text. and therefore, did you get my text basically means, well, i didn't actually want to talk to you at all but i want to go through the motions of contacting you? >> may i offer a counter point of view on that? i happen to think that texting and email messaging have a value

is that they are not as direct, not as intimate as a phone conversation. >> i want directness, i want intimacy. >> well, you don't want it from me. [laughter] i guess what i'm saying is -- i think the arms length is a good way to conduct business, particularly business, but often times many of the personal encounters. >> you're never going to get a story from a text message. >> there's a second thing, for some who don't come up with obnoxious abbreviations is return us to the written word. it was about to disappear. people did not have the brain pathways to actually sit down and write words. >> i don't think it's making any difference, bob. i think people just don't want to confront. i don't think they're writing any better. >> there's power in an anymority. >> that's why you're on

television and writing the newspapers! because you want to be anonymous! >> i could say something really nasty about what programs i have here. but no, i would never do that. >> i want to go back to big institutions and the banks again. the banks that charge you fees -- >> oh, oh. >> if you take $20 out of the a.t.m., it costs three dollars. if you take $300, it costs three. the poor take $20 and pay more. it is atrocious. the technology is there that these fees could be sliding some what in relationships to the amount of money available. it is lazy, it is greedy, it is obnoxious. >> at some point we had strong members of congress that were going to do something about this. and gee, they disappeared during an election year. >> wait until the banks on the other big institutions decide that because the supreme court has said that people, they have

the same entight lts as people to free speech, and to shut up, which is what they shall use the money for to silence it, to ridicule it, to push it out the door, you're going to see more abuses. i have a little think at the bank. i've been in the same bank for 25 years, never had a bounced check. and they lost it. it got into the internals of the night of the safety box. i went in and they found it. but they charged me a new fee, i've never heard of. nonsufficient, not insufficient, nonsufficient, $105, thank you very much. simply because they hasn't been able to use my money for five days. we do know they may think we're stupid and we may indeed be stupid, but we do know they clear the checks electronically overnight. it doesn't take five days.

it is not put on a mule and sent down to the federal reserve to be cleared. >> i will say this about banks, that you can still go into a bank and buy a roll of quarters. and they haven't figured out how to charge for that yet. >> i wish you hasn't said that yet! >> that's not necessarily true. a lot of banks refuse to. >> they do? i've never had a problem. >> wait a minute, on the other side, have you brought a roll of quarters to them and where they said you need to roll these before you give them to me? >> let's talk about the fact that many of the things that we complain about are things that should be illegal, or certainly abusive that the banks do. but are really unable to get our unresponsive political system -- >> inresponsive to the banks -- >> don't you like it when i throw you a straight line?

but that's exactly the point. as we're entering this whole realm of health care, which by the way, there is an old tv slogan i love, which the marching orders were to get out there and scratch the surface. frankly, health care reform only scratched the surface to deliver medical care system to the united states. same with the banks. they have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar, or the piggy banks or whatever. and they still are able to effectively bribe the members of congress to dilute the legislation that should be passed to properly regulate. >> they completely thumb their noses at the white house. >> and they can charge on their credit cards interest rates that used to have the mafia sent to jail. >> this is nothing new. will rogers talked about the best government money can buy and we still have that in the united states. and that is not a free society, it is a bought and paid for

society. >> this is true. can i just get back to banks for a second? recently citibank sent me changes in my account in about -- i don't know. >> 50,000 tiny, tiny words. >> i have two magnifying glasses. >> if you don't like it, what are you going to do about it? nothing! >> nothing! >> well, i have very good news for our viewers. the marvelous thing is that our viewers can turn this program off without penalty. you can go to the refrigerator when bob is talking without penalty. >> can they bring me a beer while they're there? >> and we're so glad you came along to this unusual but special complaining issue of "white house chronicles." we will be back next week, hopefully complaining in a larger sense about the

governments of the united states. until then, all the best. cheers. >> "white house chronicles" is produced in collaboration with whut. howard university television. from washington, d.c., this has been "white house chronicles," a weekly analysis of the news with insight and sense of humor featuring llewellyn king, linda gasparello and guests. this program may be seen on pbs stations and cable access channels. to view the program online,

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