Bob Franken has been doing history’s play-by-play for decades. Through Bob, millions of viewers around the planet have been brought to the front row at just about all the world’s major news events…war, political, legal, you name it, he’s been right there.

Bob has specialized in live coverage, with a knack for taking the story, tempestuous, or complex, and making it understandable. He is famous for a sardonic style that looks for irony, and finds it.

An Emmy-award winning reporter, recently inducted into the Society for Professional Journalists Washington Hall of Fame, he covered combat in both Iraq wars, the White House during the George W. Bush administration, the Clinton scandals, the Supreme Court, Congress for ten years. He forced world attention on the Guantanamo Bay prison camp with his extensive reporting from there.

He’s been there live through dramas like the Terri Schiavo tragedy and countless natural disasters.

Bob Franken can share a unique perspective on the news of our time…how every story is different, how each is the same, what’s the first thing he looks for when he arrives to go “Live From the Parking Lot.”

Blog Entries by Bob Franken

Social Climbing the White House Gates

Posted November 27, 2009 | 10:00 AM (EST)



I'm sorry. I can't contain myself. I have to write about this:

It is probably not true that when President Obama announces Tuesday he'll be ordering thousands more Americans to Afghanistan, the first two to go will be the couple that crashed the White House State Dinner. But...

Read Post

Thanksgiving: When There Is Humane Treatment for All

3 Comments | Posted November 26, 2009 | 09:55 AM (EST)


Those Humane Society commercials on behalf of neglected, abused and hungry dogs and cats are heart wrenching to me. No one loves animals more than me, dotes more on his own pets.

HOWEVER: Don't we need a similar campaign for human children? Given the new study that shows one fourth...

Read Post

The State Dinner and Afghanistan: Stepping Up to the Plate

Posted November 25, 2009 | 11:10 AM (EST)


Unlike the wide coverage given to the tedious sessions President Obama has held about Afghanistan, the planning for the White House State Dinner for Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was conducted in complete secrecy. No leaks whatsoever.

It's a pity. First of all, the President himself also convened these...

Read Post

Insincerity Hall of Fame?: Just Asking

Posted November 24, 2009 | 11:44 AM (EST)



"Thank you for asking".

If I am ever able to realize my dream to establish an Insincerity Hall of Fame that phrase will have a prominent place.

It's the usually dismissive response from someone who has just been asked "How ya doin'?". I always want to fire back...

Read Post

The SAD Study

1 Comments | Posted November 20, 2009 | 04:26 PM (EST)


With all the reports coming out that recommend we scale back on life saving medical exams there is one we might soon see from still another group of experts.

This one concerns depression. It concludes that diagnosis, medication and counseling won't work anyway, so why bother trying. After all,...

Read Post

Dan Snyder, The Redskins and Other Failures

Posted October 30, 2009 | 09:08 AM (EST)



Chances are you've been following the Washington Redskins epic lately. You don't have to be a football fan to be fascinated by the story of a team owner who has managed in 10 short years to squander generations of goodwill from an area that came together on little...

Read Post

The Washington Wrongman

2 Comments | Posted October 21, 2009 | 12:15 PM (EST)


You've heard this before. It doesn't matter whether those of us who fancy ourselves politically informed are right or wrong when we pontificate. No one really pays close enough attention to remember, and certainly we don't. It's a great gig.

Well, I hope you're sitting down, because this pundit-wanna bee...

Read Post

Mr.President: Outfox Fox on Fox

11 Comments | Posted September 17, 2009 | 09:46 AM (EST)


President Barack Obama: You are about to set the world record for presenting the same show on the most channels in the same day. The record is currently held, of course, by "Law and Order". The only network where you will not be seen is Fox. And that Mr. President,...

Read Post

The Real Meaning of the Email

Posted September 15, 2009 | 09:42 AM (EST)


Even though we've moved way beyond emails with texting, instant messages, Twitter, Facebook and what have you, emails are still in play. But we have never understood what they really say.

So as another in my series of vital public services, I am interpreting the language of electronic mail... what...

Read Post

Fill In the Blank Stories

Posted July 10, 2009 | 04:09 PM (EST)


It's easy to get jaundiced covering politics and government after awhile. So much of what happens in Washngtonworld is so predictable it's like the old joke about old jokes. They're so familiar someone assigns numbers to them.

Even after the historic election of Barack Obama, the collapse of the economy,...

Read Post

Supremes Fanning the Firefighter Flames

6 Comments | Posted June 29, 2009 | 04:27 PM (EST)


It may be one of the dumber Supreme Court rationales in quite some time. Writing for the 5-4 majority which ruled in favor of New Haven's white firefighters and effectively against anti-discrimination in employment, Justice Anthony Kennedy said

"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race...

Read Post

The Meanings of MSM

1 Comments | Posted June 24, 2009 | 11:32 AM (EST)


It's easy to get confused. Until bloggers started disparaging "Mainstream Media," I always thought "MSM" was a gay guy thing in the personals.

One can only imagine the quandary for a gay guy blogger. Does he place his "MSM" ad in the "MSM"?

This is not LGBT-bashing, by the way....

Read Post

Better Fetters

1 Comments | Posted June 18, 2009 | 10:15 AM (EST)


Let's assume we recover from our near collapse. If we do, or even if we pretend to, we need to ponder the overarching lesson we should learn from all this: UNFETTERED CAPITALISM DOES NOT WORK.

We inevitably get sucked into what President Obama calls a "culture of irresponsibility." Truth be...

Read Post

Tweety 3-P

3 Comments | Posted June 11, 2009 | 10:11 AM (EST)


Sometimes they have all the right ingredients: By that I mean news stories which combine Twitter's vacuousness, with parochial political pandering (known as a "3-P") and media desperate for news on a slow day.

I refer, of course, to the short outbursts from Sen. Charles Grassley who used Twitter to...

Read Post

The Mean Machines

Posted June 4, 2009 | 10:24 AM (EST)



It's a variation on one of our great philosophical questions: "If Newt Gingrich says something utterly ridiculous, and nobody is listening, did he really say it?".

The answer is "Of course not. What a silly question".

The problem is that the Newts, and Rushes and their counterparts on...

Read Post

The Supreme Lightness of Meaning

2 Comments | Posted May 28, 2009 | 10:05 AM (EST)


Those of us who enjoy being pretentious are quoting Aristotle who criticized the law as "Mind without reason".

Step aside Aristotle. Make way for Barack Obama. In announcing his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, he borrowed from Oliver Wendell Holmes, to many the supreme Supreme Court Justice....

Read Post

Secrecy and Democracy

Posted May 21, 2009 | 02:03 PM (EST)


Consider one of the Franken Rules of Life: "There is nothing good that someone won't corrupt."

Today we talk about secrecy. Obviously there are many worthwhile reasons to keep things confidential. There is sensitive personal information that is no one's business except those who require that you reveal it to...

Read Post

Bubble Trouble

1 Comments | Posted May 14, 2009 | 12:21 PM (EST)


"Breaking News!!!" "Today's economic indicators have improved from 'Disastrous' to 'Dismal'!!!"

That's the gist of the breathless cable news we're hearing in the last couple of weeks...followed, of course, by a request for viewers to send in their Twitter Tweets.

It's exciting stuff to a world so paralyzed with economic...

Read Post

Supremely Surprising

3 Comments | Posted May 7, 2009 | 10:41 AM (EST)


As all powerful as the US Supreme Court has been in shaping our society, it is usually ignored by we the people whose actions are controlled by its interpretations of the rules. In large part, that's due to media indifference to any story that can't be told in news snippets.

...
Read Post

Days 641 and 1376

1 Comments | Posted April 29, 2009 | 10:02 AM (EST)


Pity the poor news media. Their hysteria over the Swine Flu disrupted all their elaborate plans for overcovering Barack Obama's first hundred days.

Not that it put a stop to them but things can get confusing when a contrivance is interrupted, particularly when it doesn't mean a whole hell of...

Read Post