| {Originally posted at my blog Senate Guru.}
Remember last week how Republican Sinning Senator David Vitter talked tough regarding "angry mobs" appearing at elected officials' town hall events:
This and any other angry mob is welcome to my town hall meetings whenever you want to come.
Of course, it was then reported that the questions that the Sinning Senator so bravely took from the mob were pre-screened:
The Louisiana Republican spoke at what was billed as a town hall meeting at Louisiana College's Guinn Auditorium. It was a friendly audience but there was little chance for disagreement to be expressed.
The panel of speakers all joined Vitter in opposing the reform package being debated in Congress. Questions from audience members were screened and selected in advance of the event.
Well, sports fans, that's not all. Now it's being reported that, not only were the questions pre-screened but, the audience was handpicked! And when I say handpicked, I mean that Vitter's harem shipped in Teabaggers and turned away constituents! (emphasis added by me)
Unlike his Democratic colleagues who take all comers at their town halls, Vitter has sought to enforce a strict code of message control. According to a citizen journalist attending the August 8 Vitter town hall, "No one was allowed to spontaneously address the podium. There were no questions read that presented anything other than Vitter's view and those who spoke with him. ... Vitter was said to have no time to answer questions from the press." Indeed, Vitter only responded to questions that were written on cards by audience members and screened in advance by his staffers.
Many of those attending Vitter's town halls have been shepherded to the events by local chapters of TeaPartyPatriots.org, a supposedly grassroots network of national activists that happens to "partner" with the health-care and insurance industry-funded lobbying firm Freedom Works, which has directed angry mobs to Democratic events. At a town-hall meeting on August 10 in Jefferson Parish, many local constituents were reportedly turned away while Tea Party activists were allowed to enter. When the event concluded, Vitter rushed out of the back door and away from the press and his constituents, guarded by a phalanx of police officers.
Vitter has good reason to fear public scrutiny. Had he not pre-screened his audiences, some wily constituent might have asked the senator to address his affair with Wendy Cortez, a high-priced New Orleans escort, or asked how his name showed up on the client list of Jeanne Palfrey, the so-called DC Madam, who killed herself in May 2008 after being convicted of money laundering. The constituent could have framed the question in terms of the health-care debate by asking Vitter why he reportedly wore a condom when he visited Cortez but subsequently tried to introduce an amendment barring health-care providers that offer free STD testing and contraception from receiving federal funds.
David Vitter has not answered to his constituents or to the law for his criminal acts, his dishonesty, his hypocrisy, or his shudder-inducing cowardice. He's not even willing to answer to a skeptical constituent on his opposition to health care reform, much less his opposition to not sleeping with prostitutes. I imagine that he will continue "rushing out of the back door" of events in order to avoid constituents and the press throughout the 2010 cycle. Seriously, how does this coward look in the mirror? |
