Reston, Va. — In the hour before Democratic congressman Jim Moran’s lone town hall of the August recess, the line stretched from the door of South Lakes High School, down the street, around a corner to a parking lot, into the parking lot, and then took three more turns. Temperatures remained in the 90s, the sun beat down, and flies periodically buzzed around the crowd estimated at about 3,000, many of whom came with signs, pro and con, on Obamacare. Throw in special guest speaker Howard Dean of the infamous scream, and you had the perfect formula for the ugliest of all recess town-hall meetings.
And yet, with the exception of one fistfight outside and the removal of pro-life protester Randall Terry from the event by police after he refused to cease chanting, almost everyone emerged little worse for wear.
The night offered a few lessons as Congress prepares to return, most notably that criticism and avoidance were the exact wrong response for the Democrats to make to the town-hall protesters. Since the first exhibitions of public skepticism and fury over the president’s proposed health-care bill, many members have found a newfound appreciation of “tele-town halls” or invitation-only events.
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It’s easy to forget that all of these members asked for the job of representing their districts, and presumably knew full well that listening to constituents came with the territory. In a world where even a Little League umpire hears some boos, a lawmaker too delicate to withstand salty variations of “the bill stinks” and “you stink if you vote for it” probably ought to contemplate the lucrative options of post-elective life. There are few things in today’s politics more unseemly than lawmakers’ expressions of terror at the thought of departing their hermetically sealed environment of civility and obsequiousness populated by agreeable staffers and favor-seeking power brokers.
Moran, known for periodic odd behavior and intemperate outbursts, actually managed the event fairly well. Early on, he declared that “dissent is as American as apple pie” and that “people should not be silenced.” (A skeptic in the upper bleachers yelled, “Tell that to Pelosi!”) He said his staff had distributed George Washington’s Rules of Civility at the door. He noted that the room was “roughly evenly divided,” which might have even been a bit generous to Obamacare opponents.
But even Moran couldn’t avoid comments that sounded a bit too close to a whine for the crowd’s tastes. After hearing a few shouted queries on whether he had read the bill, Moran said, “We spent four hours listening to an explanation of the bill’s technical language,” generating a widespread, mock-sympathetic bellow of “AWWWWW!” Rarely has such industrial-strength sarcasm been deployed in such a wide manner. Later, attempting to explain why the bill did not include tort reform, Moran lamented that including that provision would mean the bill would have to be approved by the Judiciary Committee, which again triggered sarcastic sympathy at the thought of another hurdle.
Moran spent much of the evening going through “myths” about the legislation that he sought to dispel, an exercise that seemed futile, as genuinely undecided attendees seemed few and far between. The fact that the congressman felt the need to address eleven separate “myths” suggests that arguments against the bill are multiplying.
Moran seemed quite pleased with his answer on “death panels,” but his answer echoed other Democrats in blurring the “end-of-life counseling” provision with a panel that would review which medical procedures are cost-effective. When you create a new federal entity that would conduct “comparative” research on the cost-effectiveness of various treatments in order to establish federal guidelines, sooner or later they’ll encounter a treatment that is simultaneously life-saving (or life-enhancing) and not cost-effective. What happens then? Can Moran, or any other lawmaker, promise that no treatments would be rejected for any patient?
