Moe Lane

No, of course these ‘town halls’ the President runs aren’t fake:

PRESIDENT OBAMA TOWN HALL, MTV

PRESIDENT OBAMA TOWN HALL, MTV MTV, BET and CMT are casting the audience for town hall meeting with President Obama. Shooting Oct. 14, 4p.m. in Washington, D.C. Seeking—Audience Members: males & females, 18+. To apply, email townhallaudience@mtvnmix.com and put “Town Hall” in the subject line. To ensure that the audience represents diverse interests and political views, include your name, phone number, hometown, school attending, your job and what issues, if any, you are interested in o …[more]

Via Jim Geraghty.  Personally, I wouldn’t care about this all that much if they weren’t calling them ‘town halls.’  It’s not like I was going to watch the President answer thirty second questions with five minute answers (that actually weren’t), after all.  But how do they expect President Obama to get good at talking with* people if he’s never given the opportunity?

Moe Lane

*Talking to people he has cove…  actually, no, he’s bad at that, too.  Talking at people he has covered.

This is not going to be a link-fest; this is going to be a scolding.

Speaking as a former Democrat: August was a personal humiliation for me.  I would never have believed that the Democratic party could have produced such a crop of perpetually-terrified, start-at-their-0wn-shadow, two-for-flinching scaredy-cat politicians as the ones that showed up on our television screens and monitors, usually moving at high speed away from the cameras.  Note that I did not use the term ‘old women.’  They were running away from old women.  Extremely annoyed (and for good reason) old women, true: but you’d have thought that the Democratic party was facing the combined specters of the Mongol Horde, the bubonic plague, and Skynet, the way that their politicians stood not on the order of their coming, but went at once.

Yes, I know that the level of vitriol and projection on the people opposing health care rationing grates on a lot of people.  I’m one of them; probably the most teeth-gnashing aspect for me was watching the Speaker of the House call people who disagreed with her Nazis, particularly since (as somebody else pointed out) a goodly number of the people who she was slandering actually fought Nazis.  The casual sexual slurs and projection of motives weren’t particularly welcome, either.  But what highlighted it for me was the way that  the Democrats hid while they did all of that.  Telephone town halls.  Attempts to hold meetings without telling constituents.  Last-minute changes in venues.  Rigged question-and-answer periods.  Bussed-in ‘supporters.’  Some of them didn’t even dare hold a town hall – and more would have tried that trick, if they hadn’t been pressured into doing it by their Republican challengers.  And the ultimate item?  They’re going to hide behind a dead person and try to pass health care rationing that way.

Which, by the way, won’t work.

All in all, this was just… embarrassing.  I used to identify with this party.  Most of my family still does, in fact – and from now on, when political topics come up, it’s going to be awkward for everybody involved.  Them, for being stuck with a bunch of wimps representing their interests – and me, because I hate seeing my family distressed.

Incredible.  Simply incredible – in the more archaic sense of the word.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

(Via The Other McCain.)

I’m sure that the guy thinks that he’s trying to be helpful, but he flunks out by the subtitle.

You won’t win the healthcare debate by calling people stupid racists

Elite right-wing foes of healthcare reform are telling lies. The folks listening to them are mostly just scared

Dude. They’re not scared.

They’re pissed off.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

(H/T Ace of Spades, NewsBusters, & Hot Air) I’m aware that’s kind of an inflammatory statement, but hear me out.

OK, remember last weekend, when there were a bunch of reports of armed people at the Arizona town hall? Lots of stories of bemused reporters trying to get their heads around the notion that in Arizona you can wander around with an AR-15 -

Which is not a fully automatic weapon, by the way. You can’t buy fully automatic weapons in the USA*. I mention this because this is apparently news to our journalistic class.

- anyway, lots of bemused reporters, not least because of this picture (via here):

Health care rationing protester, by the way. See also this video, and stop at about 0:28.

OK, yup, same guy. Now watch this: (more…)

Says it all, really.

If you’re wondering how seriously the administration is taking its tame – some might say, ‘gelded’ – town halls, well:

A look at President Obama’s health care “town hall” Tuesday in Portsmouth, N.H., shows the president out-spoke his audience by a ratio of nearly 9-to-1.

Here’s the scorecard.

Obama: 8,619 words.

Audience: 1,186 words.

You tell me.

Moe Lane

PS: Anybody else getting the feeling that one of the reasons that Democrats are being so graceless about this entire ‘town hall protest’ thing is because it’s wrecking their vacation?  I mean, really: sitting in Congress and spending our money is such hard work, and here is the mob spoiling the ruling faction’s precious, precious time away from that task.

The nerve of us.

Crossposted to RedState.

The assault (from last Thursday) disturbs me. The casual mockery by pro-health care rationing supporters towards a man (who I haven’t even fully confirmed was a health care rationing protester) who’s just gotten punched in the face disturbs me a whole lot more.  I don’t care what your stance is on this issue: your instinctive response to this sort of thing should not be to ask sarcastic questions about the victim’s health insurance.

Original video here News stories here and here. See also Gateway Pundit and Weasel Zippers.

Moe Lane (more…)

It’s just that she loves talking on her cell phone more.

The clip is from a longer one made by a 9/11 Truther, by the way. Which is very funny, because if the Democrats are losing that subset of their party over health care rationing then they’re in real trouble.

Moe Lane

(via @JTlol) Suffice it to say that the administration’s ‘town halls’ are about as free-form as a sestina.  And before anybody asks: I am not going to spend the morning writing thirty-nine rhyming lines of poetry that has as its subject this administration’s lack of willingness to face criticism.  It doesn’t amuse me enough to do it for free and I don’t see anybody with their checkbooks out.
(more…)

[UPDATE] Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers.

Tim Bishop (D, NY-01) is having something called a “health care reform rally” on Thursday, at (of all things) SEIU’s Hicksville NY offices (1199 Duffy Ave, starts at 1 PM). This is otherwise known as “over twenty miles outside the borders of NY-01.” Bishop is of course one of the first Democrats holding down a Red district (NY-01 is a R+0) to discover that his constituents are paying attention to his votes: he rather famously canceled his future in-district meetings. Presumably he assumes that his constituents won’t drive twenty miles to complain.

Meanwhile, Leonard Boswell (D, IA-03) has at least decided to stay in-district for his “health care listening post” – barely.  Although his district includes Des Moines, Boswell has instead decided to travel 80 miles east this week to the Sigourney Public Library (Thursday, 2 PM).  He won’t be actually having any meetings on the subject in the Des Moine area (where the vast majority of his constituents live) for another two weeks.  Still, at least he’s having them; apparently being D+1 can make the difference between in and out of district.

Neither one of these two Congressmen are freshmen, and neither were considered to be hardline liberals before this Congress.  And both of them are clearly not interested in facing their constituents just quite yet.  Very interesting, that.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

There’s no way to sugar-coat it, although Dorgan’s certainly trying.  If his town halls are all going to be like this one:

Dorgan will be at the fire hall for only an hour, so there won’t be a lot of time for questions, Pyle said.

…then yes, he is in point of fact ‘worried.’ As well he should be: Ramussen’s new numbers are out, and they are really, really pretty.  At least, from the point of view of folks who are against health care rationing. (more…)

The Democrats had best hope that this is not party-line thinking.

The results are 41% support / 35% don’t / 23% not sure, but the interesting thing here is the partisan breakdown:

Given the partisan anger prompted by the town hall meetings, it’s not surprising to see a similar divide in the survey. Fifty-five percent (55%) of Democrats have an unfavorable view of those opposing the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and the leaders of their party. Sixty-three percent (63%) of Republicans and the plurality (48%) of voters not affiliated with either party view the protesters favorably.

Not good news for the administration. Neither is the breakdown on the “Are they fake?” question (49% real, 37% fake, 14% not sure):

The partisan divide is even wider when the motivations of the protesters are at issue. Seventy percent (70%) of Republicans and 58% of unaffiliated voters say the protesters reflect the concerns of their neighbors. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Democrats say the protests are phony.

All in all: this poll is only good news for Congressmen sitting in safely liberal districts. Everybody else favoring health care rationing? Not so much.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

So much for the Democratic narrative.

Now this should be what worries proponents of health care rationing: citizens showing up in much larger-than-anticipated numbers to complain about an issue – to legislators who agree with them.

U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., learned constituents were more engaged than he may have thought.

Hundreds turned out in Waycross for a town hall meeting Wednesday on House Resolution 3200, the House bill on reform – a discussion Kingston’s staff thought would draw only 50 or 60.

Kingston heard worries over the effect of the bill on businesses, lack of health care choice, and the degraded quality of coverage. Kingston himself said there was too much big government and too much cost in a universal plan.

Via The Campaign Spot.  The aforementioned health care rationing supporters – which is to say, “Democrats” – should be worried for two reasons.  First off, it helps put the lie to the Democrats’ sad allegations that the other side is also faking up grassroots support.  Jack Kingston won his R+16 district by a comfortable margin last year; GA-01 is about the last place you’d choose for astroturfing GOP support for something.  Secondly – and more importantly – stories like this indicate that the Republican rank-and-file has gotten a taste for showing up for events like these.  Which is great… for the GOP, because we don’t have to spend many resources at the moment to get them there and keep them there.  Not so great news for the Democratic party, which will have to have its union contingent spend even more resources to match what we’re doing now.  Which means that anybody from a GOP district should go to their town hall meetings, too.  Not that you should forget your cameras.

Just in case.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.