Another Town Hall Moment That Probably Won’t Make the News
Here’s the set up for the latest spark in the prarie fire. Two weeks ago, all of Washington was in high dudgeon over a photoshopped fax depicting Obama as the Joker that was making the rounds. The picture was captioned by the word “SOCIALISM” and contained a letter threatening “Death to All Marxists! Foreign and Domestic!” Liberals demanded a manhunt for the cyber-artist responsible for the offensive parody (and then remained largely quiet when the perpetrator was revealed to be a diehard leftist).
Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) was among those who received the fax:
“What we’re seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics,” Baird said in an interview with the Vancouver, Wash., Columbian on Thursday. “I mean that very seriously.”
Baird is hosting “telephone town halls” instead of live ones out of concerns of an “ambush,” he told The Columbian.
Democrats have criticized Republicans, including radio host Rush Limbaugh, for comparing them to Nazis in their drive to win approval of healthcare reform legislation. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs on Friday said anyone making comparisons to the Nazi party is “on thin ice.”
Baird has also compared protester tactics to those of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, which drew calls for an apology from Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman Gary Jones.
“For Congressman Baird to use the tragedy [of] Oklahoma families and the loved ones of those who were injured and lost their lives for political gain is inexcusable,” he said.
Baird’s outrageous comments set the stage for a confrontation with a Marine at his August 18th town hall meeting that he’ll probably never forget:
If that video of Baird being flayed alive for calling others Nazis gets even half the cable news airtime of the handful of LaRouche-ite nuts carrying swastika signs at health care protests, I’ll eat my jackboots. Hearteningly, this isn’t the first time a member of Congress has been reminded of their constitutional duties in stark terms by a military vet:
Just got a phone call from John Larson the other day when I was back home in CT. He’s doing the same thing — “telephone town hall” — presumably because he feels that Connecticans don’t care that he sees eye to eye with them, only that he hears and can easily ignore their wishes.