White House Disputes Pelosi Contention that Town Hall Protests are "Un-American"

[John Kerry VonErich]

Source: ABC News

White House Disputes Pelosi Contention that Town Hall Protests are "Un-American"
August 10, 2009 5:39 PM



The White House disagreed this afternoon with the contention by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland, that the disruptions at town hall meetings are "un-American," as the Democratic congressional leaders contended in a USA Today op-ed this morning.

"I think there's actually a pretty long tradition of people shouting at politicians in America," White House deputy press secretary Bill Burton told reporters on Air Force One when asked about the comments


Read more: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/white-house-disputes-pelosi-contention-that-town-hall-protests-are-un-american.html

[leftstreet]

1. That is so revealing n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

23. Yes....isn't it.

edit to add:

on further reflection,lafter noting it was an ABC story/headline, let's share the rest of the comments from the WH: noting the 2nd paragraph.

"The President thinks that if people want to come and have a spirited debate about health care, a real vigorous conversation about it, that's a part of the American tradition and he encourages that, because people do have questions and concerns ...And so if people want to come and have their concerns and their questions answered, the President thinks that's important.

Now, if you just want to come to a town hall so that you can disrupt and so that you can scream over another person, he doesn’t think that that's productive. And as a country, we've been able to make progress when people actually talk out what our problems are, not try to shout each other down."

At his town hall meeting in Portsmouth, NH, tomorrow, Burton said, President Obama "thinks that we're going to be able to have a constructive conversation tomorrow and he'll continue to do that at the town hall later in the week and throughout this effort."

[Oregone]

2. We need another beer summit, right fuckn now!

Please don't assume I really mean that

[bkkyosemite]

3. That was a stupid comment. These people are becoming violent,. harrassing and intimidating. This is

not just a few people talking loudly.

[emilyg]

4. You should have seen the

protests in the 50's and 60's. We were loud and abnoxious.

[bkkyosemite]

5. Uh I graduated from high school in 1964 lots of my friends were in Viet Nam.......and no I was not a

hippie....

[chascarrillo]

6. Did you bring guns?

[earcandle]

8. People are generally arrested, their hair pulled out and tazed when obnoxious these days... (even 70

years olds, and that is okay?  But its cool if its a political
disruption by the repugs?

gag me with a spoon and then sit down so I can throw up on
you.  

Is that obnoxious? 

[maglatinavi]

12. sttupid commen

... Pelosi is soooo right. Kudos to her and all the bright persons that see what the turmoil is about: disrespect and abuse. The actions of the turbulent gops are disrespectful and totally unreasonable as the people are not even in.formed of what they are protesting about. They are rabble rousers... what a shame... sigh! Kudos to Pelosi!!!

[opihimoimoi]

7. Those Meetings must have rules of order....with authority to remove disruptors by Police

[maglatinavi]

11. meetings

The dems were caught with their pants down...they didn't realize how mean the repugs are and how they have no respect for law and order...As of now, I am very upset about how lies can take over rationality... Obama and his people must stop being poitical milquetosts and stan up...

[opihimoimoi]

14. What is taking so long to Prevent the Citizens from losing Their FREEDOM to meet with their REPs and

Senators....all it would take is security at those meetings to insure Parlimentary Rulres/code of conduct/ is followed...

[defendandprotect]

9. Whaat . . . ???? Sounds like a DLC-think response . . . dumb--!!!

[kelly1mm]

10. How's the underside of that bus looking Madame Speaker? nt

[ScottLand]

13. If Maher's recent statement was true

about American stupidity, then these protests are very American. But unproductive nonetheless. I can handle an opposing viewpoint but nobody wins if we don't argue respectfully.

[panzerfaust]

15. Which whitehouse?

[Vidar]

16. Pitiful when Pelosi shows more fight than Obama.

[robcon]

17. The question is if they are unAmerican. They are not..

The president is right to state the obvious - you can be patriotic and still protest loudly and sometimes obnoxiously.

Pelosi is wrong.

[Cass]

18. "Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American."

However, it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue. These tactics have included hanging in effigy one Democratic member of Congress in Maryland and protesters holding a sign displaying a tombstone with the name of another congressman in Texas, where protesters also shouted "Just say no!" drowning out those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion.

Let the facts be heard

These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/08/unamerican-attacks-cant-derail-health-care-debate-.html

That's the relevant section of the Pelosi-Hoyer op-ed piece - I'm not sure what there is for Burton to disagree with. When an orchestrated collective screaming fit shuts down discussion then there's a problem and it is an un-American thing to do.

He does go on to say that civil debate is encouraged at Obama's upcoming town hall meeting but if they want to just yell and scream that's counter-productive. But let's be honest - the secret service isn't going to let any of these goons anywhere near the Pres and they aren't going to allow anyone to shut down Obama's town hall with a screaming fit like they've done elsewhere. Obama's town hall is going to be nothing like the congressional town halls that we've seen so far because the teabaggers are going to be pre-empted.

(edited to for confusing sentence)

[robcon]

19. I agree the screaming is counter-productive. Pelosi was wrong: they are not unAmerican.

That's the point. The disruptors are not unpatriotic. Pelosi smeared them.

They may be stupid, misguided or may even be crossing the line into illegal or criminal activity. But they are not unpatriotic.

[Cass]

20. The op-ed does not say the disruptors are un-American, it says the disruptions are.

"In the meantime, as members of Congress spend time at home during August, they are talking with their constituents about reform. The dialogue between elected representatives and constituents is at the heart of our democracy and plays an integral role in assuring that the legislation we write reflects the genuine needs and concerns of the people we represent.

However, it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue.
...
Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American."

That's what the op-ed said.

Preventing discussion undermines our system of government so I think Pelosi/Hoyer make a valid point.

[robcon]

22. Not to put too fine a point on it, but...

How can a 'disruption' be unAmerican, but the 'disruptors,' i.e., those who do that "unAmerican" thing, are not?????

I think your parsing of the statement is stretching the point way beyond what Pelosi and Hoyer stated. The plain meaning of their statement is that the disruptors are unpatriotic.

The president, IMO, is correct, and Pelosi and Hoyer are incorrect.

[Cass]

24. Thats your interpretation of their op-ed, but it's a red herring imo.

It ascribes the criticism of the tactics as a personal attack on the disruptors when it said no such thing.

I'd bet most of these people disrupting the town hall meetings love their country but have been lied to and misled by those with an agenda. They are inundated with rw propaganda on a daily basis and they believe what they hear by people they trust; that's why they repeat nonsensical claims about euthanasia, etc. They are brain-washed, for lack of a better term.

People with an agenda who deliberately feed disinformation to the public in order to manipulate them are another story altogether.

[Doctor_J]

21. That's our Dems - firing on each other instead of the clear & present danger

that is the GOP.

Anyone else running out of "hope"?

[Igel]

25. There's that word again.

"Un-American."

Hard to dispute, harder to define in a rigorous manner that doesn't crucially rely upon exactly how one's values are ordered. In a free society, of course, any ordering is permitted, so mandating how they have to be ordered or structured is antithetical to a free society.

An old Russian instructor taught me this. "Antisovetskii", he said, had a very clear and well defined meaning at any given point (that it could change was beside the point). "Un-American" or the less domestically popular "anti-American" meant, he claimed, that the person speaking didn't like what was being done by somebody else, disapproved, and needed a GTA to express it ('general term of abuse'). He was proud that people generally considered the use of that term to be a sign that its user had utterly lost the argument, and consequently shunned using it.

Of course, this held in the previous 8-year-period of note when those on the left were dubbed 'un-American'.

I've seen lots of people shout down speakers on campus--some were politicians, most weren't--and reject the idea that they were un-American for shouting down views. They had rights, including freedom of speech. Of course, pretty much all of them are Obama supporters (except those who consider Obama a corporate military-industrial-complex shill for rightist forces), and most of them consider the current bout of shouters un-American. Primarily because they disagree with the opinions of the protesters or agree with the opinions of the speakers. Some find other reasons--their facts are wrong, they are hypocritical, they actually have organizers working with them, their ultimate funding sources are unclean and impure, etc., etc.

Perhaps the Speaker of the House can put together a House committee to examine these un-American activities. After all, there's precedent, one that I'm sure she must admire. Or perhaps I'm wrong. (And, lest people decide that they hate the sin and love the sinner, I'd note that the committee I allude to was the un-American *activities* committee, not the un-American *people* committee.)