and bob franken of "politics daily."pear every sunday -- a bigger part in, every saturday and at 9:30 a.m. eastern on the radio. julie, where is this anger among the well-addressed to the to these meetings to raise the barricades? there was a fun that little is used to have about that. the great unwashed liberals in the street. now, we have the super well- washed, squeaky clean destroying or certainly upsetting and bring a degree of angry debate into downhaul meetings -- into a town hall meetings. >> no one would never cover the before, and now we cannot stop covering them. robert gibbs accused white house court -- the press corps of being disappointed because the president was not screened at in there was a bit of truth there. a lot of people went thinking that there would be fireworks, and there really was not. >> it is certainly ramp up. as you said earlier, there are five bills. yet, these people are certain they know what is in them. this is very frightening. >> of these are people who do not believe what they read

. -- here he is -- bob franken. his real genius, i think, has been kept from many of you, it is as a writer. you can read him now politicsdaily.com. you can look it up on the web. i promise you will be entertained and enlightened. welcome to the show. tell me what it is like to be a television correspondent. it is thought of as a glamorous thing. is it glamorous? >> i think you could take one look at me and see just how unglamorous it is. is actually quite a bit of tedium. i think most people forget television. the job of journalism is the tedium of getting information right, the tedium of waiting -- >> awaiting i can attest to. >> not to say that is not exciting. i used to tell people that it be growing up, and i think we should continue to tell people we should be out there playing and doing things that other people just in be to honestly realize that before we go out and have all the excitement, we have massive amounts of time getting ready. >> it bothers me when i see some of the very young people on some of the

bob franken is a writer for "politics daily." is it fair to make that connection? >> i think there's a question we have to clear up first and that is how many times has barney frank talked to his dining room table? it's really important. and how many times are we going to play that? >> i was thinking a lot of people were going to come back with that because it's ricochetted around the world. the democrats finally have somebody who's punching back. >> you remember when everybody was, i'm not a potted plant. now, i'm not a dining room table. to some, misinformation is the only information. there are people who don't want to take the time or don't have the intellect to go through all the complexities of health care and they're easily persuaded by emotion. this is not a left wing or right wing thing, although now it seems to be on the right wing and i suspect the people at freedom works are not going to send their people to any more barney frank meetings. to liken all of this to the nazis or to say to an israeli man, hile hitler, is dispickable. there are some pros and

joining me live from washington, d.c., is bob franken, writer for "politics daily."ood morning. >> good morning. >> you know it's hard to imagine any of the differences over health care can be addressed. all of the noise of the town hall meetings. whose responsibility is it to help turn down the volume so that you can have intelligent and calm discussion take place? >> well, that sounds positively un-american in modern times, doesn't it? first, i think it's probably we should look at the people responsible for causing all this uproar in the last few days. you have the smarmy people on the right whipping up their people to go and spew their spittle of ignorance and now the smarmy people on the left bringing in their people in to fight the people on the right so it's really quite a mess and i got to say that at the town meeting that president obama is going to, if anybody has any plans for that i have but two words for them, secret service. kind of scared you for a sec. didn't i? >> we can guarantee we'll hear the conversation. >> you bet. >> what about alaska governor

bob franken said there was another side of novac that few people saw. >> on the air you would see bob novac and somebody who have what looked like a fight to the death. what you didn't see was the before and after in the green room where you we talking about fami, making plans to get together. >> novac made his mark as a columnist. the inside report with roll len evans april meard in -- appeared in newspapers around around the country. he gained prominence for unveiling the name of cia operative valerie plame. >> in south carolina during our mutual coverage of the presidential campaign, he asked if i could walk home with him to protect him from people that were making threatening gestures and all that. i did. i was happy to. >> reporter: despite the fact that he was a washington institution, he never rested on his fame. >> making the phone calls and the shoe leather type of things that tippy face what journalism used to be. now anybody can use a computer and put something out there without the slightest idea of what he's talking about. >> novac was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008.

i'm joined by bob franken, syndicated columnist and brian debows contributing writer for theroot.com.inning august? what do you think? >> actually i believe the democrats are winning because the republicans are being represented by a bunch of screamers out there. all the democrats have to do is stand silently by while the other side makes fools of themselves. >> okay. there's that point. brian, how about you? >> i think at this point it's a draw. i say that because the president has had to come out himself and directly champion this bill. the congress has actually written in, whether or not it's a good will will remain to be seen when they come back. at this point it's not a good bill. there are some problems with it. the other issue is for some of these conservatives who are at these town halls saying some of these things about the bill, where were you when medicare prescription drug came out or when the bush administration came up with the t.a.r.p. plan? they just seem disingenuous. i don't think it's right to call them un-american because they oppose it, but they seem very hypocrit

bob: 2 outs quickly. gonzales coming up. >> rob: only name i knew was ralph franken. he is saying they cheated. hey were giving signals or something. >> bob: you know bobby thompson you know how bard went about 320 feet? he bolted down the line. that was a wreck tack eye lar. a polo ground stadium and turned it into a park something like 290 down the line. he hit it into the first tier of the left field seats. >> rob: that is like nick johnson and. >> bob: the whole family thing going. >> rob: wow. >> bob: i saw a tie gram of the homerun one time, i mean, if you just took the corners of any park and cut them off and set the wall straight out. that's what they are like. pirates are playing great defense. we're convinced that now halfway through the game. pa announcer: final boarding call... all passengers... each with an average speed of 590 mph... almost as fast as you. nothing's gonna hold you down. grab your bag . it's on™west so our low fares stay low. ( ding ) book now at southwest.com.  >> bob: a beautiful view of t allegheny river over on the north shore. they call it in pittsburgh. co

bob. >>> senator al franken is forced to cancel a fund-raiser.s saying no thanks to the offer of cash. >>> and watch police here take down a man who got rowdy during a protest over health care reform. >>> famous crime writer dominick dunne has died after a long battle with cancer. the best-selling author was known for covering legal cases of the rich and famous for "vanity fair" magazine. dun started writing about crime after the 1992 murder of his own daughter and became a crime victims advocate. he was 83. >>> minnesota senator al franken cancelled a fund-raiser after learning the host served prison time for swindling people in franken's home state. the man was convicted in 1997 for what one of his relatives described it as a ponzi scheme. he spent 13 months in jail. the client rejects his action. the fund-raiser was scheduled for today in st. paul. >>> police and soldiers faced off in violent protests in the streets. police in south africa's capital used rubber bullets and tear gas to push back more than 1,000 soldiers trying to storm governme

jon: bob, if you are campaigning to get this passed, when al franken got there, he you had 60 votes.you have 59. >> the math makes it more difficult. costs are out of control, it is bankrupting america, and we will put it right on the republican plate. they have no alternatives and put up with nothing. they said, we did the best we can do, we lost ted kennedy, we could not get the boats we needed, but we tried to get it done. the votes upon to insurance companies, and nothing is getting done. >> interest companies are not doing anything. is the citizens concerned about this. have you seen those unions? the union-turning out? we know who they are. the reality is, you say something often enough about the party of no and maybe somebody believes it. anyone looking at legislative history knows that there are a bunch of opinions that they have tried to get through on malpractice and form -- reform. but the reality is, nobody is looking at them. it is not republicans were thinking this. it is democrats understand the reality, and it is not republicans who are killing us. jon: we will have t