August 07, 2009 10:16 PM UTC

Colorado Dems Taking on the Crazies with Strength and Style

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• by: ThillyWabbit

Last night I was on Diana DeGette’s telephone town hall on health care, and something very striking happened. Of all the questions which were all screeened, the Congresswoman chose to take questions almost exclusively from opponents of the plan– going out of district at times for opportunities to issue smackdowns in professional, cheerful, knowledgeable, and crystal-clear terms.

For example, one healthcare question from a person in Castle Rock pivoted all over the place from abortion to immigration. Since the abortion part had already been asked and answered, she chose to address the immigration part by matter-of-factly stating that we definitely have a problem with undocumented workers and insecure borders and huge backlogs in the legal system, but this is not an immigration bill. The message was basically ‘nice try at changing the subject.’

And today we see Governor Ritter basically doing the same thing:

While one woman from Eagle became a bit shrill in her peppering of the governor, at one point saying she didn’t care about his agenda, Ritter calmly responded by saying he would address those in the audience who did care. He said it was unwise to let one issue like immigration color the debate on issues as vital as health care reform and economic recovery, especially when the state has an obligation to all of its residents. [emphasis added]

And that’s what we’re seeing across the country. If you actually listen to the words the angry mob uses, they are basically using the health insurance reform bill as a coat rack on which to hang their standard grievances about immigration, “big government,” President Obama’s birth certificate, abortion, gay rights, guns, “judicial activism,” “states rights,” hate crimes, and every other right-wing pet issue.

The more our Democrats follow suit, the more these people’s schtick will be apparent to those in the media who still choose to report the crazies as people who have legitimate healthcare policy disagreements when quotes like “keep your government off my Medicare” don’t seem to make these people obvious enough.