Pelosi: Townhall Meeting Protesters Are Un-American

In an Op-Ed piece in USA Today, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi with the House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer called the protesters at townhall meetings across the country against the government's health care "reform" bill "un-American".

'Un-American' attacks can't derail health care debate
(Nancy Pelosi/Steny Hoyer, 8/10/09 USA Today)

After paying their lip service to a great American tradition of debate and dissent, the authors say:

"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.

"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." [emphasis is mine]

Hahaha. Good one, Madam Speaker. Who has been drowning out opposing views? Who's drowning out the facts? I think more people outside Congress have read the actual monstrocity of the bill H.R. 3200 than members of Congress have. A local radio network in my area has been reading the bill page by page for the past few weeks, every single morning.

"The first fact is that health insurance reform will mean more patient choice. It will allow every American who likes his or her current plan to keep it. And it will free doctors and patients to make the health decisions that make the most sense, not the most profits for insurance companies."

Well, I wouldn't call those "the facts". H.R. 3200 will allow Americans who like their current plans to keep them. The hitch is that they are stuck with them and cannot change them if they want to, according to Section 102 of H.R. 3200. Doctors and patients are NOT free to make heath decisions, because Section 141 of H.R. 3200 says the Health Choices Commissioner, a Presidential appointee, will decide benefits.

"Now — with Americans strongly supporting health insurance reform, with Congress reaching consensus on a plan, and with a president who ran and won on this specific promise of change — America is closer than ever to this century-deferred goal.

"This fall, at long last, we must reach it. "

To reach the un-reachable... star... Good luck with that, Madam Speaker, after calling your fellow Americans "un-American" for daring to disagree with you. Your Nixonian rhetoric was ill-chosen and very ironic.

(I don't know which one to grade lower, Pelosi's "un-American", or Barbara Boxer's "they are too well dressed to be sincere".)

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