"When they could go no longer ignore the anti-Obama voters, Democrats began to dismiss them and demonize them as the hired guns of the insurance companies or Brooks Brothers protestors. Far left columnist Paul Krugman accused them of harboring racial anxiety. The fact is crowds of this size only turn out across the country if there is real, genuine passion about an issue. And what's driving this August activism is a lack of trust in what the Democrats are promising on health care. Voters hear oh, don't worry, abortions aren't covered. Illegal aliens don't benefit. Care won't be rationed. Private insurance won't be killed off. Yet, informed Americans respond with, we don't believe you. Rather than facing the harsh truth, Democrats have stooped to a new low. The strategy of attacking voters who dare to speak out is backfiring big time. It simply widens the gulf of distrust and infuriates hard-working Americans. Democrats should now see the folly of this entire health care cram down. Hey, so much for no drama Obama and a new era of bipartisanship. I have an idea. Instead of trying to pass a 1,000 page bill that will only add to the federal deficit, why not convince a blue state to do a test run of Obama care for the rest of us. Any takers?"

Fox News analyst Juan Williams joined Laura to discuss the town hall craziness. He disagreed with Democrats that the outrage was manufactured: "There's real discontent and real concern. I mean, just look at the polls, Laura. What you see is the people are concerned about specific, the high level of spending." Laura agreed, and theorized that the Democrats just had not anticipated the level of resistance: "What I think has happened here with the Democrats is they absolutely were caught flat-footed by the level of discontent and distrust about big hulking government programs. They were caught flat-footed. They thought they were going to be able to ram this thing through before the vacation."

For a look at public opnion, Laura welcomed Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway and Scott Rasmussen, the head of polling company Rasmussen Reports. Rasmussen explained that Democrats and Republicans were evenly split over the health care issue, however "like almost everything else in the debate these days, the unaffiliated are leaning more in the Republican direction. They are concerned about the health care protests. And they want to see these concerns given voice." Conway had a look at the bright side for the president: "I think that Obama finally achieved what he wanted to achieve, which is to be a post partisan president -- because he has a majority of the Democrats, Republicans and Independents now taking a better look at his agenda and rejecting it particularly on health care." Laura saw the stalling of health care reform as a victory for the Fair and Balanced media: "it looks like the Democrats really thought they were going to sail pretty smoothly on these seas when it came to health care reform. They had the numbers, they had the votes, they had the momentum. And lo and behold came to talk radio, FOX News, some really promising Internet reporters and bloggers. And guess what? Representative democracy can actually work."

An Obama adviser said in an interview that they didn't want to use the term "War on Terror" anymore. Laura asked FOX News strategic analyst Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters if this made America safer. Peters was blunt in his assessment: "Well, I think it makes the White House and the extreme left feel a lot better, but it's just nutty." Laura wanted to know why Obama was softening his rhetoric, because "his actions are actually oftentimes pretty tough. I mean, we took out the Taliban commander it looks like in Pakistan today." Peters didn't think that Obama had much to do with the recent victories: "He's letting our military do most of what it needs to do in Afghanistan because he wants the problem to go away. He made a campaign promise he was going to win."

Taxpayers were outraged to hear that Congress, which scolded auto company CEOs earlier this year for flying in private jets, ordered themselves more than $500 million worth of their own private planes. Paul Singer, investigative reporter at Roll Call, is one of the guys who broke the story. Singer pointed out that Democrats and Republicans were both culpable in this case: "This is pretty much a bipartisan thing. This bill with these planes in it went through the House on a 400-something to 30 vote." Laura was just mad about the hypocrisy of the whole thing: "What's clear is that you had top Democrats on Capitol Hill wagging their fingers at CEOs from the auto company who came from Detroit to Washington on their corporate jets that they use. They were sanctimonious and trying to make this great point about sacrifice and the need to tighten our belts. This just looks terrible."

The dynamic duo of Glenn Beck and The Factor have had some memorable moments in the few short months that Beck has been at Fox News. One such moment was Beck's unvarnished opinion of Barack Obama: "I think he's brilliant. I think the way he sees America is kind of like if he were talking to me, he'd say, 'Glenn, I'm not trying to destroy your marriage. I just see your wife with me.' He's not trying to destroy the country. He just has a radically different view." Another great moment was Beck exploding at a caller to his radio show. "You went a little overboard," The Factor opined. " I think there's only so much you can take before blood shoots out of your eyes," Beck quipped back.

Kenneth Gladney, a conservative activist, was trying to hand out "Don't Tread on Me" flags at a town hall meeting in St. Louis when an angry man confronted him: "This guy walked up, and he said, 'Who in the -- who in the blank is selling or giving away this stuff here?' I said, 'Sir, this is my merchandise. And would you like a flag or a button or something like that?' And he said, 'What kind of [racial expletive] are you to be giving this stuff out?'" Gladney, who is African American, was then pushed to the ground and kicked and punched. Laura confirmed with Gladney's lawyer, David Brown, that some of those assaulting Gladney were wearing SEIU t-shirts. "As far as I can tell," Laura said, "The union thugs roughed up your client." Brown, who witnessed the whole thing, gave his reaction: "It was a frightening sight to see a friend of yours in such a situation where he was doing nothing wrong. He was exercising his freedom of speech. And to see the hatred there was horrible."

The Factor recently spoke to Dan Balz and Haynes Johnson, co-authors of the book "The Battle for America 2008" which takes a look at last year's election. Johnson explained that John McCain's first problem was that the base of the GOP never really embraced him. But McCain had an even bigger problem than that, Johnson said: "The biggest single problem he had was the unpopularity of President Bush. Almost impossible to run and win the presidency if the sitting incumbent of your own party is at approval rating below 30 percent, which was where President Bush was." Next, the authors tackled the question of how Hillary Clinton, the presumptive frontrunner, lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama. "I think there was a personal factor," Balz said. "There was a question about did people trust Hillary Clinton? She never answered that question." The Factor pointed out that Hillary may have been doomed from the beginning: "How do you make somebody trust you when you have a resume like Hillary Clinton had?"