During the Bush Administration, we were frequently told that the President was kept in a bubble, insulated from critical voices. Democratic proponents of health care reform seem to be heading down that path, with some avoiding the meetings and others (like the current inhabitant of the Oval Office) attempting to discredit the folks who show up to protest the Administration’s policies.
My dad, who sent his Congressman--John Spratt (D-S.C.)--a quick email about health care reform, asking him to protect seniors’"hard won medical insurance benefits", received a non-reply suggesting the message was deleted without being read.
If attacking or ignoring critics was either morally or politically wrong for the Bush Administration, is it any less problematical for their successors?
The folks showing up at the event and hooting and hollering are the (self-conscious) equivalent of Code Pink. Say what you want about Code Pink, but their object is not to promote dialogue, and even they themselves can't really complain if they are ejected. Their stated objective is to be disruptive, not to communicate criticism.
I doubt that e-mails from constituents are "deleted without being read," unless they're just part of some identical campaign generated through a web site. Nobody in Congress has an incentive to do that. Good for your dad for writing his Representative.
I don't think they all are the equivalent of Code Pink, though some may be. I know that there are birthers and truthers and so on out there. But the concern about--and indeed fear of--the Democratic healthcare proposals at the grass roots is genuine.
As for my dad's message, it wasn't part of any orchestrated email campaign. And the non-response HAS motivated him to show up at his Congressman's next public meeting.
The folks showing up at the event and hooting and hollering are the (self-conscious) equivalent of Code Pink.
Why? Because you say so?
their object is not to promote dialogue
Whereas the Democrats saying "shut up" and ramming through legislation which has not been read (and in some cases has not eve been written) are trying to promote dialogue?
And I love the after-the-fact criticism of Code Pink. Just yesterday I saw some moonbat conceeding that all the images of Bush as Hitler and Bush as vampire were wrong. Only in order to complain about the Obama as Joker pic of course.
Joe: Good for your dad! Any chance he'll guest-blog on it?
Good post. The far-Left has also not been happy with Obama's "inclusive" approach to reform. You certainly won't find many (if any!) single-payer proponents at the negotiating table.
Let's see. Code Pink shows up to disrupt and confront events involving mass murdering war criminals who are responsible for unbelievable crimes and are not being held accountable. The disrupters at town hall meetings are trying to stop a dialogue on a very modest reform proposal of an inhumane disastrous broken healthcare system. Yeah, they're both the same. Jesus! That's insane. This kind of thinking is why the American far right, as loud and obnoxious as they may be, is shrinking by the day. Good riddance. I just hope their lone wolf 'activists' don't take a bunch of innocent people with them on their way out.
This is my take on it: Eight years of imbecility, incompetence and wrong-headed policies gave way to Obama and a Democratic Majority. Obama et al were tasked with saving a blown-out economy and improving a dysfunctional health-care system while developing an energy policy predicated on something more elevated than Drill Baby Drill. Two out of three have been accomplished (granted, SAVING the economy is not synonymous with restoring it to full employment).
It's a restive electorate out there, Joe --- much more so than when we were freshmen at James Madison back in '74, in that stagnant post-Nixon era. In two weeks, this Democratic Congress will bear the brunt, unfairly in my view, of that restiveness.