Some lawmakers avoid town hall meetings, others don't
Date: 2009-08-09T00:00:00
Author: Edith Fletcher
Editor note: If you can't stand the heat ... get out of the kitchen
Teaser: lt;p>Arkansas Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor will not hold town hall meetings during this Congressional recess, though Pryor will hold “tele-meetings” over the phone.
No getting down and dirty dealing with down-to-earth people.
Lincoln was di
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Arkansas Senators Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor will not hold town hall meetings during this Congressional recess, though Pryor will hold “tele-meetings” over the phone.
No getting down and dirty dealing with down-to-earth people.
Lincoln was dismayed by disruptions at town hall meetings with other lawmakers calling them attacks and those who shouted and heckled “un-American,” and claimed the disruptions were not spontaneous. Not spontaneous?
She based her opinion on the heckles and jeers received by Arkansas Representatives Mark Ross and Vic Snyder, both Democrats, at a public meeting on health care reform at the Arkansas Children's Hospital the day before.
She retracted the un-American description later, saying, “I support the right of every Arkansan to speak out and have their voices heard. I would just ask that we all continue to work in a constructive way.”
Okay, let's construct.
But she added, “As some of those talk radio guys have said, they just want to see things fail. They want to see the president fail, they want to see this fail. And I think that's so sad and so disappointing.”
So Mrs. Lincoln will not be holding any town hall meetings at this time…of all times.
She doesn't want to get involved with such pick-and-shovel labor as answering questions from an anxious crowd. This is a terrible time for some, and it's worse if they believe that no one is listening.
If there were no anxiety on one could muster up much of a tea party or a town hall meeting -- much less an "attack."
Some of the shouting may not be spontaneous. Some evidence of organizing response has been found on web sites, but how does she know for sure? For that matter…so what if it is?
The people could stand a little organizing. The bankers, lobbyists and other special interests certainly are.
And the two heckled Representatives Ross and Snyder are organized enough to keep on slogging through tough town hall meetings. Ross will hold a forum on health care on August 14 at Arkansas State University in Arkadelphia.
This meeting will be Ross's 37th health care forum since April.