Tag: town halls

#rsrh Reality political TV.

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.

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.

Trust a Salon writer to get it wrong from the start.

(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.

I think MSNBC is trying to get the President shot at.

(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: Continue reading I think MSNBC is trying to get the President shot at.

90% of POTUS’ town hall ‘conversation’ made by POTUS.

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.

Getting in their faces – David Price’s (D, NC-04) town hall.

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 Continue reading Getting in their faces – David Price’s (D, NC-04) town hall.

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D, TX-18) just *loves* town halls.

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

I’m not going to come up with a ‘props’ pun.

(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.
Continue reading I’m not going to come up with a ‘props’ pun.

Rep. Bishop, Boswell having health care meetings allllll the way over *there*.

[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.