To further the cause of transparency, the online Obama town hall isn't necessarily a bad idea, but stocking the room full of Obama supporters has little to do with accountability in Washington and everything to do with the permanent campaign mentality. The Washington Post did some diggin' and has an explanation of why the "randomly selected" 5 asked hardball questions like "Thank you, Mr. President. My name is Sergio Salmeron. I want to find out about health care." From WaPo:
But while the online question portion of the White House town hall was open to any member of the public with an Internet connection, the five fully identified questioners called on randomly by the president in the East Room were anything but a diverse lot. They included: a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union, a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama among Hispanics during the primary; a former Democratic candidate for Virginia state delegate who endorsed Obama last fall in an op-ed in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama's campaign in 2008.This was the same online Town Hall where Obama blew off a question about marijuana legalization. Guess there were no talking points available on that one. It's no wonder that lefties like Bill Maher, Andrew Sullivan, and Paul Krugman are dropping the sycophantic nonsense and beginning to publicly criticize the President. 'Bout time they woke up and smelled the coffee.
See what the others have said:
5 comments:
This world don't need no fawning sycophants of any stripe. "Criticizing the President" ain't the answer, either. Obama came into his presidency facing a pretty f*cked up situation, thanks to Gerogie's and Uncle Dick's warped fancies.
What we do need is some brainstorming from amongst the best and brightest on both sides of the political divide. Some actual post-partisanship. The U.S. is in a dire place -- hatred should be overcome by a sense of national unity.
Forget slamming the Obamabots; he is our President now. Now, why don't the congress critters roll up their sleeves? Because they know on which side their bread is buttered.
Obama wasn't my choice, but why can we not move beyond name-calling to actually look at the problems and possible solutions? Shrinking into our little affiliations gets us nowhere, fast.
LT Nixon,
Are you familiar with this book:
"People Who Don’t Know They’re Dead: How They Attach Themselves to Unsuspecting Bystanders and What to Do About It."
This explains, perhaps, some of the problems we're having in the political and economic spheres, y'think? :)
Lisa,
While I think bipartisanship is a viable methodology to approaching foreign policy type issues and I'd reconcile some of my opinions for the good of the country (since international perception may not understand the nuances of liberal vs. conservative domestic in-fighting), I refuse to take part in some of Obama's interventionist economic policies. In short, I think it will cause a prolonged recession, weaken the nation into an entitlement state, and eventually bankrupt the country through hyper-inflation and massive deficits. How can I reconcile that?
The economy is such a fraught issue. I am conservative here, like you, in that I feel a truly capitalistic system will allow the bad banks to fail in a survival of the fittest scenario. It will be merciless and painful, but it will be that way anyway, in the long run with these vast deficits we are building.
Perhaps the question is, short term pain, or deferred pain? Being a nation in denial and a greedy one, I believe we will choose deffered, until it is clear that the money infusions are being fed to a dead system. Then I wonder what Plan B will be.
Obama's interventionist policies are bad, but then, the capitalist's bundled toxic "assets" were very bad, yes, bringing us to the point at which we stand. It is not, "Republican good; Democrat, bad" -- it is, profligate spending has an end point.
So here we are, two wars and seven years in, maybe a third front on the way, and how do you staunch the bleeding?
LT, I heard on Meet the Press today that they sent out an email to 55K Obama supporters before the Town Hall asking them to chime in.
Another interesting fact from the Wall Street Journal was that his last press conference he took questions from the HufPo and didn't take one question from any of the major newspapers.
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