Dem Congressman Cancels Town Halls, Says He Fears “Brown Shirt Tactics”
Republicans think they’ve nabbed a Dem Congressman in a bad gaffe, and are hoping to use it today to shift the argument over the town hall meetings their way.
Specifically: Dem Rep. Brian Baird of Washington State has canceled in-person town halls, citing the protestors’ use of “Brown Shirt tactics.” The Colombian reports…
Instead of appearing in person, where “extremists” would have “the chance to shout and make YouTube videos,” Baird said Wednesday, he’s holding what he calls “telephone town halls” instead.
Baird said he’s using the new system because he fears his political opponents may be planning “an ambush” to disrupt his meetings, using methods Baird compared to Nazism.
“What we’re seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics,” Baird, D-Vancouver, said in a phone interview. “I mean that very seriously.”
Expect the GOP, and a talk show host or two, to jump on this as proof that Dem criticism of the Tea Party brigade amounts to a refusal to acknowledge legitimate dissent.
Both sides are navigating a balancing act. Republicans need to portray the outbursts as proof that public sentiment is swinging wildly against Obama — without embracing extremism and thuggery. Dems need to make the GOP “own” the extremism and thuggery without appearing dismissive of public opinion. Yesterday Robert Gibbs said he doesn’t “doubt” that some are asking “honest questions about the direction of the country.”
This Brown Shirt comparison could ratchet up the noise level a few more decibles today.
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Wait, really. The Republicans are going to come out and defend a group being referred to as brown shirts. Isn’t this what the democrats will want. Seems like this would play into demcoratic hands – the Republicans complain about this being legitimate outrage and you play that statement followed by video showing pictures of protesters holding SS signs and Obama as Hitler or Satan signs and then ask “is this what the Republican party now considers legitimate discourse?”
Sounds like calling these protesters brown shirts (which they essentially are) is a good starting point for the dems. Let the Republicans defend this. The counter ad wirtes itself.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, but the blame should fall on those who escalated unnecessarily. Baird did not Godwin first.
Sad little activists trying to act oppressed and marginalized by the elitist democrats. Maybe if you tried going for substance rather than volume and self-righteus hollering. No politician dealing with a serious, nuanced matter should really have to factor in the input from voters if it is completely lacking in intellectual content.
This has reached a point where the Obama admin. has the opportunity to ju-jitsu these mobs into support for health care reform. I’d love to see Gibbs, when he’s asked about them, answers with something along the lines of:
“In actuality I think these mobs are a testament to how good the current bills coming out of Congress are, and a reiteration of how much progress we’ve made at getting this done. The insurance companies funding and organizing these mobs know that health care reform is coming. They know the days of them denying Americans coverage when they need it most, the days of doubling premiums, and the days of murder by spreadsheet are coming to an end. Out of sheer desperation they are sending these mobs, ginned up by lies and scare tactics, to shut down the conversation. There are some real concerns out there, and the American people want to get their questions answered. But the insurance companies know that if given the chance, the American people will really like the answers this bill provides. So instead allowing the American people their right to have a conversation with their government, they use mobs to intimidate and disrupt, to physically assault and issue death threats to members of Congress. Anything to stop the American people form learning the truth about health care reform. A majority of Americans want this health care reform and that number only goes up the more informed the public is about what we’re trying to do. Since the insurance companies can’t win this debate, they resort to using mobs to try and shut it down. We won’t be intimidated by the special interests who’ve been taking advantage of Americans for decades. We won’t stop informing the American people about what is in this bill. And we won’t stop moving forward until we have true health care reform in this Country.”
Come’on Gibbs. There’s an opening here…take it!
Brown Shirts? Well, when they come with billy-clubs to beat down the opposition, then sure. People have been demonstrating in this country since our inception. Nothing wrong with it – nothing at all.
I am aghast witnessing the Republican party and its corporate allies destroying the very fabric of civil democracy just to carry out a political strategy that obstructs the American people from working towards what they endorsed through the most recent democratic election cycle here in the greatest nation on the planet!
Have these vested interests no shame? Or are they as unAmerican as they are making themselves out to be?
Hearing the shouts at Rep. Thompson’s town hall meeting here in Napa, the one on making a profit stands out as the most asinine because as any God loving American patriot knows, (and has known for the past 200+ years), is that competition in the market place is the fulcrum of capitalism, not shielded profits from a “highly concentrated” industry! I am beginning to see the brown shirts among us! -Kevo
@BigBob:
These mobs physically assaulted one Congressman, hung another in effigy, and have sent death threats to third.
So all that’s standard political discourse, in your view? I think there’s a few third-world countries in Latin America in which you’d fit in quite well.
Hillary Clinton is in Africa lecturing them on democracy and accountabilty. Copies of her speech should be posted on Republican websites. Our excitable and simple minded brethren could do with a reminder.
Politicians have been hung in effigy since the beginning of time. You act like this sort of thing is new & novel… and seem aghast that there are people out there with other points of view.
give me a break
What Brian Baird has said about these screamers’ brownshirt tactics is only a “gaffe” as it is defined by Washington insiders.
The rest of us call it “telling the truth”.
Republicans who support these mobs must surely have no remaining sense of decency.
As gaffes go, I don’t think Baird has anything on Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri:
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/08/gop-congressman-jokes-dems-almost-got-lynched.php?ref=fpblg
BigBob
Just because soemthing has been done before doesn’t make it right. There is no justification for the behavior these bitter old white geezers are exhibiting. I wish there were a town hall meeting where I lived. I respect my elders, but I will knock a racist old white geezer that gets in my face the P.huk out.
@BigBob:
“Politicians have been hung in effigy since the beginning of time.”
So that makes it ok.
Well, I can’t see how I could possibly argue with that. LOL
There appear to be some here who quite honestly and sincerely believe that political figures should not be hung in effigy.
That is astounding. That so many here do not understand the nature of our country and our freedoms.
“There is no justification for the behavior these bitter old white geezers are exhibiting.”
Oh yes, that’s the way to convince the other side!
People, most of your comments are ignorant. Wake up– you’re in the minority. Obama’s poll #’s are slipping right along with what’s left of Nancy Peolsi’s sanity. These protestors aren’t racist to be concerned about the way Obama is attempting to radically change government. With his appointment of Czars, many of them admittedly Socialists.(Van Jones, etc.)
The actual brown shirts are on the political left.
And how many of you disapproved of code pink, etc.. and the many protestors during the Bush terms?
Get used to the protesting–it’s called free speech.
Obama doesn’t own this country, he’ll be gone in 4 years time. Halleluyah.
Brownshirts? What does “Firefly” have to do with health care?
I actually heard that question being raised today. And the person who raised it was sincere.
Toni, reporting from the crack addled right wing basement of the militia slums.
Death threats are where the line is drawn. Hanging in effigy is an implied threat, but not that big a deal unless its a Republican, right GrosseRobert? Like when Sarah Palin was hung in effigy and the Corporate Right Wing (the definition of fascism no matter how badly the Goldberg right wishes white were black) had a hissy fit.
The truth as Kristol admitted is that the right likes the health care they get and demand that some people (darkies, meskins, injuns, po white trash) be left out in the cold because it serves their social narrative which is based on race and class.
I’m confused Dick. The only “death threat” or threat of physical violence was posted above by one of your people, left wing “progressives”. By the way, where were you when the Black Panthers where hanging out at polling places during the election of the community organizer with billy clubs?
Hmmn… brown shirts? I didn’t see any but I thought I saw a chicken congressman with brown shorts…
When the public refuses to turn over their life and death decision, and most of their earning to government, then they are brown shirts. Who trusts a government that has taken control of our country’s capital, the auto industry, the housing industry, the financial industry, the credit industry, and wants to take over the insurance and health industry?
Brown shirts are a better title for ACORN, SEIU, Amerricorp and Black Panthers. Obama made a campaign promise to create a civilian defense corp that was as powerful and as well funded as the United States military. Now, they are the real brown shirts.
Baird had no acceptable answers to the questions he would receive. Like all Liberals he exercised his exit plan to cut-and-run.
Brown Shirts – well, withness the 8/6 Town Hall meeting in Tampa http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kxaGfClPws. Obama has called out his Union Goons to rough up protesters. Obama is Das Fuhr of the Brown Shirts. We better get rid of these people in the next elections because America is being run by a tyranical government again. And we need to be careful here because big brother is watching and we may be reported by our “friends and neighbors to theflag@whitehouse.gov.
Do the Democrats know that Hitler eliminated the Brown Shirts because they didn’t fall in line lockstep with the Nazi Party?
Seems odd that they are comparing dissenting Americans to an organization that threatened Hitlers power.
I seem to remember some (Code) Pink shirts doing everything they could to disrupt every speech Bush tried to give. I don’t remember any democrats complaining then though. Why would they? When it works to their advantage it’s legitimate protest, but when it works against them, it’s free speech hating fascists organized by the conservative underground and hell bent on destroying the democratic process. Real funny how that works.
It’s nice to see that with so many problems facing this country, our leaders can still make time for double standards and childish name calling, but is this indignation because meetings are being disrupted, or just because they’re being disrupted when democrats are speaking?
Mr. Baird’s right. Went to a town hall meeting. Got publically called a pinko commie and had my car keyed (Obama bumpersticker, I guess.) Heard the “N” work about twenty times in the parking lot. This is just what happened to me. I was respectful; the opponents of reform in the audience were absolutely not. So who’s more like the Brown Shirts of !933?
Thanks to Baird for calling it exactly right.Followers of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are pissed because their dimwitted conservatism” has been repudiated and their greatest fears have been realized: a liberal African-American president and a Latino Supreme Court justice. These bullies must have been reading Lenin – If you want to stop democracy in its tracks, violence isn’t necessary. Constant and unrelenting disruption of democratic processes will do the job – the Bolsheviks brought down the elected Duma using exactly the same tactics as the shouters are using today.
Yes we can. Destroy health care. Yes we can. Funny you morons blame the right for paying protesters, yet I found thousands of ads for people to be PAID to go to rallies and push Obamacare. Kinda hypocritical. But that’s you low iq lefties. If you look at the bill and look you would see how bad it is. But on a positive note I just invested all my money in a casket company. So while you praise a moron I will be making money off your parents and grandparents. So keep up the fight my bank account approves.
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