The DNC is out with a zinging press release pushing the idea that the Tea Shirt mobs shutting down the Democratic health care townhalls are a latter-day version of the freak show crowds that started thronging the McCain-Palin events in the dying days of the 2008 campaign.
TPM Reader JP ain’t happy …
We ARE getting out-hustled. There’s an army of us out here who want health care reform, but no one is directing us to voice our anger. I’m tired of writing and calling Sens. Cornyn and Hutchison and getting back boilerplate responses. If Doggett’s people announced another Town Hall in Austin, which tilts very left, lots of us are ready to go toe to toe with the brownshirts. But no one’s been calling……
Tea Bag protestors at Chris Dodd’s health care event in Hartford call on the senator to deal with his recently diagnosed cancer by committing suicide with an overdose of pills and booze.
Is Robert Kaplan calling for the US to impose a peace on Israel and the Palestinians? So says MJ Rosenberg.
The Worcester Telegram & Gazette reports another Teabagger/Townhall incident up in the Worcester, Mass. This time it was Reps. McGovern (D) and Neal (D) heckled and shouted down several times by unruly Bay State Teabaggers at a townhall event U Mass Medical School.
Indeed, at one point, one heckler started likening Rep. McGovern to Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele, notorious for performing macabre experiments on concentration camp inmates.
But was it just Teabaggers? Read More
From TPM Reader MN …
As an Obama supporter and volunteer during the 2008 primary and general election, I can tell you that nothing motivated me more than the prospect of LOSING. I live in NH, and the ground game is important to winning here. If I had expected an easy win, I wouldn’t have even volunteered or contributed $1. But I felt like Obama’s campaign needed me — and many others — to work for him so he could win. I do not feel that same necessity with health insurance reform. Each time the President says “We will pass health insurance reform this year,” each time I hear congressman (from both parties!) and pundits predict that, despite recent setbacks, health insurance reform is very likely to pass THIS YEAR, I think to myself, “Ok, he’s got this in the bag. He doesn’t need me to do anything.” I want health insurance reform. And in my opinion, ANY of the bills that have been drafted would be huge steps forward. Ironically, all the progress made so far makes me less willing to fight for it. I don’t know what the President can say to get all of us more motivated, but it might just come down to waiting for his back to be against the wall again.
I wrote earlier this week that in the unfolding drama of the health care townhall teabaggery, conservatives have developed their series of shout-downs and freak-outs into something resembling a right-wing performance art. Still, though, with all the antics and ferocity, let’s be honest, it’s hard to deny there’s a certain Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show quality to the whole scene.
As our team has reported on at some length already, there appears to be a reasonably well-orchestrated national effort to mobilize teabaggers to go and shutdown these townhall events with raucous demonstrations and generally making it impossible for the members of Congress to talk. But that’s not the most interesting part of watching this drama unfold. Read More