"The materials now bearing on the public mind will infallibly restore it to its republican soundness... if the knowledge of facts can only be disseminated among the people."- Thomas Jefferson, 1799
The Republicans have been justifiably called the Stupid Party for many reasons, mainly because they've failed to demonstrate they have any balls. But not Jessey Kelly, as this report of a townhall demonstrates:
Rep. Giffords canceled her town hall in Sahuarita/Green Valley and Jesse Kelly scheduled an appearance in the same venue at the same time and place. From the looks of the video below it was very successful. Both sides were allowed to speak for two hours and with no problems. You would think that a 2 term congresswoman could manage to put on a town hall during the one month August recess.
Read/watch the whole thing at Gila Courier and AZ 8th ( Jesse Kelly town hall a great success, August 14, 2009).
My favorite part is when the Democrat steps right into it and says show me where it says that in the Bill and Mr. Kelly proceeds to show her hand-out after hand-out documenting where each of the false accusations are contained in the Democrat's Bill. I don't often use 21st century jargon, but that's a pOwned if there ever was one. (Or, as Prof. Reynolds would say, "heh"!)
Republicans are often falsely accused of being The Party of "No," but as the video above demonstrates, that is mainly because their counter-proposals don't get media time.
To find out what the Republicans have offered with respect to health care reform, see Health Reform GOP-Style (Jo Ciavaglia, phillyBurbs.com, August 13, 2009). As mentioned in the link, Kaiser Family Foundation has an interactive tool to allow you to research the various proposals in a side by side format. A PDF of the various Bills may be viewed here.
The Democrats got away with this sort of thing for decades. They would get their unchallenged 15-second sound byte on the news (with a complicit media), but the Internet/Blogosphere has changed all that. The mainstream media still manages to control the major networks and nearly-bankrupt newspapers, but there are now other methods of getting the truth to the American people.
Maybe Republicans are learning. They may have to own-up to and address being the Stupid Party, but that's far better than being the Evil Party.
"The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper."- Thomas Jefferson, 1785
H/t Instapundit.
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