Reviewing the August Democratic Party’s town hall performances.

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.