PJS columnist Pam Adams attended Aaron Schock’s health car reform public meeting in Washington and decided that at times it resembled a right-wing tea party:
Supporters of the 9/12 Project, the anti-tax, anti-big government, anti-Obama, pro-Glenn Beck movement known for “tea party” protests and colorful disruptions of health care forums around the country, attended earlier health care forums in Peoria. Considering the flag-waving standing ovation Schock received, they came out in force for his town hall Monday at Five Points Washington. Tea-partyers and/or those with tea-party sentiments seemed pleased with Schock. They showed him love, he served them weak tea and Kool-Aid.
And she had some quotes that backed up her conclusion.
I didn’t attend, so I can’t characterize it.
But I’ll note this was an open meeting and anyone could attend.
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Billy Dennis is a former reporter and editor at small daily and weekly newspapers in Illinois and Missouri. He comments on media, news and politics. He also owns and operates 
I actually considered going, but what’s the point? Schock had already made up his mind. This forum was designed to coincide with the GOP House leadership’s unveiling of its non-reform bill that will never go anywhere. Besides, I find the smarmy SOB revolting — in a way that Michel and LaHood never were. He is smooth and has nice hair, though. He could go far.
Pam Adams nailed it, beautifully. She perfectly described the scene.
I was there, and did an account on my blog, peoriastory.com, but her column really captures the zeitgeist of the event.
>>But I’ll note this was an open meeting and anyone could attend.
Which is more than you can say for Senator Durbin’s Peoria health care forum, a small fact that both Adams and Hopkins neglected to mention.
Bill Thomas is VERY accurate. This is a glimpse behind the curtain of an “unbaised” reporter at the PJS. It should also be noted that Schock did not pay people to attend and hold signs like most of the government take-over rallies.
Schock actually attended a town hall meeting in May organized by his opposition, Joyce Harrant and her Campaign for Better Healthcare. This was the equivalent of him going into the proverbial lion’s den. It was their members, their format.
Durbin, Burris and Congressman Hare haven’t even had a town hall meeting on their own terms. Schock’s wasn’t tightly controlled. Some members of Congress make the audience write questions on cards and select only the ones they like. Schock had open microphones with free access for people like Bill Edley to ask a question–someone who pubicly considered running against him. Durbin, Burris and Hare can’t face real people. But Schock has done so repeatedly.
I also note, this one by all accounts, had over 1,100 people. Open to all. If Elaine Hopkins felt outnumbered in her point of view it is because her point of view is so extreme left. Elaine got a taste of middle America. Reality is so different than her narrow, extreme ideology. 1,100 people.
…says the guy who votes for the party of creationists, birthers, death panelists, and Iraq-had-WMDs. FAIL.
postsimian wrote: “…says the guy who votes for the party of creationists, birthers, death panelists, and Iraq-had-WMDs. FAIL.”
Funny accusation coming from someone who believes their ancestors evolved from an ape and votes for the party of 9-11 truthers, abortion, socialism and Jimmy Carter.
As opposed to the superstitious, paranoid party of birthers, deathers, mooners, and teabaggers? At least the nutbags on my side of the spectrum are shunned by the mainstream Left rather than embraced by them. QED.
Like MSNBC puts Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann, who actually have television shows; radio personality Randi Rhodes; Michael Moore, who gets a seat next to former president Jimmy Carter at the 2004 DNC convention, and congressman Alan Grayson of Florida, who says Republicans’ health care plan is to “don’t get sick, but if you do…die quickly,” and also called a former advisor to Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke (Linda Robertson) a “K-Street whore.”
The left is in bed with these clowns, postsimian…don’t deceive yourself.
Olbermann, Maddow, Moore and Grayson, et al, aren’t extremists (Ed Schultz, granted, is an obnoxious loudmouth). They’re pretty squarely liberal. Good luck trying to lump them with the 9/11 crowd who is now, as I understand it, targeting democrats. Have you heard of that nutbag Alex Jones? He seems to have no problem getting conservatives on his show.
Compare that with Chuck Grassley, an elected official, who was filmed telling a crowd that the Obama administration wanted to “pull the plug on grandma,” or, perhaps, to Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who sincerely believes that we’re living in a totalitarian dictatorship.
Quite honestly, I miss the rational conservatives of decades past. At least you could reason with them. That was before the theocratic authoritarians swooped in and began their crusade of party purification. I choose this phrase advisedly: the inmates are running the asylum.
Postsimian’s ad hominem attack duly noted…no attempt to contest the facts that Durbin, Burris and Hare refused to have open town hall meetings on health care, while Schock attended one organized by his opposition, followed by the massive one last week that was open to all.
No, no contest there. I’m merely pointing out that your calling anyone’s ideology “extreme” is laughable. From the modern Right-wing viewpoint, EVERY other position looks extreme.