Good for Them

Saw this linked at Insty. I'm rather glad that they feel this way. Now if they can get the Congresslime to listen.

The White House disagreed this afternoon with the contention by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, that the disruptions at town hall meetings are "un-American," as the Democratic congressional leaders contended in a USA Today op-ed this morning.

"I think there's actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One when asked about the comments.

"The President thinks that if people want to come and have a spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it, that's a part of the American tradition and he encourages that, because people do have questions and concerns ...And so if people want to come and have their concerns and their questions answered, the President thinks that's important. Now, if you just want to come to a town hall so that you can disrupt and so that you can scream over another person, he doesn’t think that that's productive. And as a country, we've been able to make progress when people actually talk out what our problems are, not try to shout each other down."

I agree that it isn't very productive, but that method of protest is very common on the left, including in Obama's own support organizations. I just would like the meetings to have sufficient civility that it wouldn't happen. No doubt the SEIU bullying people out of the room as has been seen at several of the town hall meetings is sufficient proof of their own tactics.

At his town hall meeting in Portsmouth, NH, tomorrow, Burton said, President Obama "thinks that we're going to be able to have a constructive conversation tomorrow and he'll continue to do that at the town hall later in the week and throughout this effort."

No doubt Obama will have a nice supportive meeting in Portsmouth. Seeing that it is probably the most liberal city in the state it would be surprising that it isn't just loaded with his supporters and union storm troops. I'd be surprised if the seats are already all occupied for the event.

I wonder how many Free Staters are going to try to get in. Should be interesting.