Protesters Disrupt Town - Hall Healthcare Talks.

[elleng]

BOILING SPRINGS, S.C./OCONTO FALLS, Wisc. (Reuters) - At scattered events across the United States, protesters are confronting members of Congress whose summer "town hall" meetings aim to get a sense of how Americans feel about overhauling healthcare.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2009/08/08/news/news-us-usa-healthcare-townhalls.html

[vi5]

1. I am really gobsmacked...

...at the ineptitude at which our side has handled this whole thing. I mean pretty much anyone on this messageboard or any liberal blog or anyone who watches even a minute of television news could have seen how this whole debate and discussion was going to go down. We all knew their tactics in advance. We've seen the unhinged lunacy of the right for how long now and seen how the professionals in the republican party stoke and feed it.

Max Baucus and his blue dogs did not just enter office 2 weeks ago. They've pulled this shit before.

So how did our leadership not prepare for all of this? How did they not get all their ducks in a row and come up with a comprehensive plan to counter this before it happened? Especially after the bail out debacle. Maybe they thought the tea parties ended up being so lame that this would similarly fizzle out. But they also had to know the insurance industries would be helping this time.

I'm not blaming the victim here, because the victim is the american public. I'm just beginning to really believe that the democrats in Washington are at the very least accomplices even if only due to their ineptitude.

[eilen]

2. Total agreement here.

No strategic planning on this? Really. I am disappointed. With all the tsars the administration has, you would think someone would oversee the PR on this. I have seen the news reports and the focus is clearly on the right. If nothing else, they are being heard but crickets on the side of the people who want and need healthcare, that are getting screwed by the insurance companies, by actual fact checking on the imagineering "death panels". This is a fucking mess.

It makes me wonder how bad our president and his administration want this.