An interesting story from USA Today ... Republican congressfolk are giving up on hosting "town meetings" in their districts, because mean ol' libruls kept showing up at them.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-03-16-gop-townhalls_x.htm?csp=34
Shaken by raucous protests at open "town hall"-style meetings last month, House Republican Conference Chairwoman Deborah Pryce of Ohio and other GOP leaders are urging lawmakers to hold lower-profile events this time.
This month, Republican leaders say they are chucking the open town-hall format. They plan to visit newspaper editorial boards and talk to constituents at Rotary Club lunches, senior citizen centers, chambers of commerce meetings and local businesses. In those settings, "there isn't an opportunity for it to disintegrate into something that's less desirable," says Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference.
Republican leaders are urging their party's lawmakers to take the spotlight off themselves by convening panels of experts from the Social Security Administration, conservative think tanks, local colleges and like-minded interest groups to answer questions about the federal retirement program.
The shift in venues and formats, Santorum says, is aimed at producing "more of an erudite discussion" about Social Security's problems and possible solutions.
Yes, because preaching to the choir is much more effective than, I don't know, talking to other people.
Also, does anyone else smell the hypocrisy in Republicans taking credit for every anti-dictator protest that happens in the Arab world ... and then tut-tutting about how rotten it is when Americans decided to protest Republicans?