THIS flyer was leaked by a volunteer with Freedom Works and got all kinds of attention on the blogosphere yesterday... Personally, I don't find anything terribly offensive or shocking about encouraging folks to be more active in their local politics. I know of several liberal action groups that are also fervently trying to rally grassroots level support at townhall meetings themselves, so the outrage is rings a tad false. What I do take offense to though is this implicit encouragement to manipulate the conversation and ridicule representatives. The whole purpose of a townhall meeting is to have a discussion and exchange information - these people are turning them into a chance to get attention (as apposed to a chance to listen to what the bill entails, ask questions, register educated question ABOUT HEALTH CARE REFORM, or make any constructive suggestions) from the media.
Now, I can not prove it - but I am willing to bet it's not a coincidence that the author of the leaked memo happens to have a penchant for video taping himself cornering his local representative and suddenly TODAY OperationEmbarassYourCongressman.com is launched. Wanna know what else seems like quite a coincedence? No videos of Republican reps on the site (they claim no one has sent them any).
UPDATE: The latest in what feels like a string of coincidences... on the OperationEmbarrass homepage they provide a link to a listing of townhall meetings and suspiciously includes the phrase "(hosted on another website I don't manage)". That site? TeaPartyPatriots.com. Guess who is a member at TeaPartyPatriots.com...
