Remember President Obama’s Staged Town Hall On Health Care?
July 2, 2009 / 5:23 pm • By Dr. Melissa ClouthierYeah, well, it was mostly emotionalism wrapped in nonsense. The Cato Institute has done a nice job explaining the truth:
More from Cato on the taxation needed to fund this monstrosity.
The transcript for the Obama circumlocution is here.
The LA Times Andrew Malcom also says this about the Town Hall:
Remember when public opinion turned so dramatically against the Iraq war that the White House only let invited guests attend George W. Bush’s out-of-town speeches?
Well it seems like the same thing might be happening to President Obama’s healthcare proposal.
As the Ticket reported yesterday, Obama answered questions at a town hall at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Va., about protecting the uninsured, giving consumers a public option and converting medical records from paper to digital files. The White House portrayed the town-hall meeting as one in a series of public outreach events, a way for the president to keep his finger on the pulse of public opinion, and in turn to sway Americans on the complex and contentious issue.
This morning, the Washington Post is reporting that “of the seven questions the president answered, four were selected by his staff from videos submitted to the White House Web site or from those responding to a request for ‘tweets.’ ” And the three audience members he called on randomly? The Post says “all turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee.”
None of this would surprise any good White House advance staffer. Better to control the crowd, screen the questions, anticipate the topics. And, to be fair, a college campus in a Democratic county might be expected to produce friendly questioners.
So, it was scripted, light on facts, and heavy on emotionalism. It was also out of touch with reality.
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