I could hardly believe what I was hearing last night and this morning as various liberal talking heads had their righteous indignation at full throttle because a bunch of septuagenarians followed Barack Obama's advice to his supporters in the campaign to get in people's faces and argue. The golden-agers heeded the call of their president and have turned out at various town hall meetings to give their elected representatives a piece of their mind over health care reform.
Democrats were aghast that the tactics of the left would be so unfairly employed against them and have been alleging that people were bussed in from outside, that what happened at the meetings was "orchestrated," that it was "mob-rule," that the geezers were trying to "shut down debate," and so on, but this is mostly absurd. In all the video clips I saw of these town hall meetings the anger of the people was aroused because their representatives were telling them they had to rush health care reform through Congress without really reading what they were imposing on the American people. It certainly seems that it's the congressional leadership and the President who are trying to shut down debate.
Allahpundit highlights the irony. He writes:
- People who want Congress to take more time debating healthcare are shutting down debate.
- Pres. Obama says the time for talk on healthcare is over, but his critics are trying to shut down debate.
- Harassing and threatening the families of AIG employees is awesome; razzing Representatives and Senators is totally bogus!
- Asking Representatives and Senators to read bills before voting on them is killing democracy.
- Sen. Specter saying "we have to make judgments very fast" is awesome. Booing him for saying so is shutting off debate.
- Healthcare protesters are thugs shutting off debate; antiwar protesters are merely "rowdy."
Hot Air has some clips of these encounters with the grey-haired ladies and gents who have so terrorized and scandalized the disciples of Saul Alinsky, as does TCP. Michelle Malkin, meanwhile, posts clips to instruct us on how to do real political thuggery. The clips, of course, are all of various left-wing "protests."
If the folks at these town halls were excoriating Republicans over some Bush initiative you can bet your mortgage that the Democrats and liberal media would be praising them as outstanding examples of American citizenry, but since their ire is directed at the Democrats they're being insulted and minimized. It certainly seems that a lot of reporters and politicians are just psychologically incapable of objectivity and genetically prone to making themselves look and sound like dolts.
RLC
