Town halls gone wild

[BlueStateSaint]

This is a harbinger of things to come . . .

Town halls gone wild

Alex Isenstadt Alex Isenstadt – Fri Jul 31, 5:30 am ET

Screaming constituents, protesters dragged out by the cops, congressmen fearful for their safety — welcome to the new town-hall-style meeting, the once-staid forum that is rapidly turning into a house of horrors for members of Congress.

On the eve of the August recess, members are reporting meetings that have gone terribly awry, marked by angry, sign-carrying mobs and disruptive behavior.  In at least one case, a congressman has stopped holding town hall events because the situation has spiraled so far out of control.

“I had felt they would be pointless,” Rep. Tim Bishop (D-N.Y.) told POLITICO, referring to his recent decision to temporarily suspend the events in his Long Island district.  “There is no point in meeting with my constituents and [to] listen to them and have them listen to you if what is basically an unruly mob prevents you from having an intelligent conversation.”

In Bishop’s case, his decision came on the heels of a June 22 event he held in Setauket, N.Y., in which protesters dominated the meeting by shouting criticisms at the congressman for his positions on energy policy, health care and the bailout of the auto industry.

Within an hour of the disruption, police were called in to escort the 59-year-old Democrat — who has held more than 100 town hall meetings since he was elected in 2002 — to his car safely.

The bolded is for Carl's and Karin's benefit--maybe there are some people who feel like we do elsewhere in the state.

It may come to a couple of Congresscritters actually being injured by these mobs before the Democrat Party finally gets the message.  The rest of this article is at:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090731/pl_politico/25646