Cokie says she finds the screaming, angry people at healthcare town hall meetings "unpleasant." She "doesn't know how we got here" and wonders if it doesn't have to do with...
The lack of nuns. No, really. That's what she said.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Those phrases appear nowhere in the bill. The only thing...
GINGRICH: But...
STEPHANOPOULOS: ... but let me just explain what's in the bill and then get you to respond to that. The only thing in the bill is they would allow Medicare to pay for what they say is voluntary counseling on end-of-life issues.
GINGRICH: I think people are very concerned, when you start talking about cost controls, that a bureaucracy -- we don't -- you're asking us to trust the government. Now, I'm not talking about the Obama administration. I'm talking about the government. You're asking us to decide that we believe that the government is to be trusted.
We know people who have said routinely, well, you're going to have to make decisions. You're going to have to decide. Communal standards historically is a very dangerous concept.
STEPHANOPOULOS: It's not in the bill.
GINGRICH: But the bill's -- the bill's 1,000 pages of setting up mechanisms. It sets up 45 different agencies. It has all sorts of panels. You're asking us to trust turning power over to the government, when there clearly are people in America who believe in -- in establishing euthanasia, including selective standards.
Transcript of ABC's THIS WEEK below the fold.
Chris Matthews Accuses Jim Dean of Trying to "Kill" Ben Nelson
Chris Matthews unloads on Jim Dean, brother of Gov. Howard Dean, and chair of Democracy for America, for DFA's ads targeting Sen. Ben Nelson on health care reform.
Matthews: That's what you're saying.
Dean: I understand what you're saying. We're challenging him.
Matthews: No, I'm saying what you're saying, not what I'm saying. You're trying to kill this guy, so he'll turn around, squirm in bed a while and do what you want him to do.
Dean: We're not trying to kill this guy. What we're trying to do is challenge him to get involved and engage the voters in this debate and we're pointing out as a material fact...
Matthews: Okay. I'm smirking because you're obviously writing the ad. You're writing the copy and yet you're coming on this show and giving us the foreplay and the soft sell.
Sitting from her desk on the set of ABC, Cokie says she can craft the perfect health care bill without blinking an eye. Isn't she special?
STEPHANOPOULOS: it'll force him to go slower, which is probably a good thing, but the problem he may have is actually managing his liberal base.
ROBERTS: Absolutely, I think that is going to be the problem because look....you could sit here right now, even though it's complicated we can sit at this table and write a bill...
STEPHANOPOULOS: Insurance reforms, some costs control...
ROBERTS: And, but no public option and it's a bill that's actually been there for a very long time. You can take the Wyden-Bennett, it is a bipartisan bill. And Howard Baker and Bob Dole have a bill, you know there are bills out there that are doable. And if I had to guess in the end I think that's probably what is going to happen is something much more watered down ...
STEPHANOPOULOS:...But will the Howard Dean wing of the party go along?
ROBERTS: No, they are going to be absolutely furious and that is the problem that he's got right now. He's already got the liberals
NOONAN: Maybe it would be good for the president if he got absolutely furious about something.
ROBERTS: Well, I think that's the middle advantage. (Cokie's last words were tough to hear)
NOONAN: I understand what's going on, we got a little middle stuff going on around here, we got some centrism. That ain't so bad.
FNS: McConnell Says Democrats Criticizing Disruptive Astro-Turf Protesters Misses The Point
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the latest in GOP talking points trying to take the conversation off what health care reform really means to Americans:
MCCONNELL: Well, look. I think attacking citizens in our country for expressing their opinions about an issue of this magnitude may indicate some weakness in their position on the merits.
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