White House Brushes Off Health-Care Protests
By HENRY J. PULIZZI
WASHINGTON -- The White House isn't concerned that increasingly vocal protests around the country are frustrating its push for health-care legislation.
Briefing reporters Tuesday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs suggested that the opposition is being organized by a small group seeking to create "manufactured anger."
"I hope people will take a jaundiced eye to what is clearly the AstroTurf nature of so-called grass-roots lobbying," Mr. Gibbs said.
In recent days, administration officials and Democratic members of Congress have been shouted down by angry protesters at town halls in Pennsylvania and Texas, an uproar that could grow when lawmakers return to their districts for the August recess.
Mr. Gibbs compared the protesters with the "Brooks Brothers Brigade" that he said appeared in Florida after the 2000 presidential election.
"I seem to see some commonality in who pops up at some of these things," he said, without elaborating. "You can see quite a bit of similarity between who shows up where."
While protests intensify, the White House also has stepped up its response. It reacted early Tuesday to one online video featuring clips of President Barack Obama appearing to suggest that his health-care plans would eventually replace the private insurance sector, producing its own video shooting down the claim. In the White House's video, its main health-care spokesperson, Linda Douglass, accuses opponents of taking old footage and using it out of context as a scare tactic.
"They simply cherry-pick and put it together, and make it sound like he's saying something that he didn't really say," Ms. Douglass says in the video, which can be seen on the White House's Web site.
Asked why the administration decided to respond, Mr. Gibbs said, "There's a tremendous amount of misinformation floating around on health care."
Two More Grassroots Town Hall Meetings
Dems: Town Hall Protesters Are 'Birthers,' 'Tea Baggers,' and 'Fringe'
The angry-mob style protesters who have infiltrated town halls around the country are the non-organic product of "tea-baggers," "birthers," and the conservative fringe, two Senate Democratic leaders said Tuesday.
Speaking outside the White House after meeting with President Obama, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Chuck Schumer of New York both dismissed the significance of boisterous protesters who have been interrupting Democratic lawmakers' events.
"It is a small fringe group," Schumer told the Huffington Post, "and if we let a small group of people who want to monopolize the conversation and not listen to the facts win, you may as well hang it up."
"These town hall meetings have been orchestrated by the tea baggers and the birthers to just be a free-for-alls, make a lot of noise, go on YouTube and show discord," said Durbin. "I mean that is what they are determined to do. But that is not going to accomplish what we need to accomplish: real health care reform."
The Illinois Democrat was asked later if he was worried that the protests would have the desired effect, namely persuading vulnerable lawmakers to buck the president's health care agenda. He projected calm. "Most of them are grown-ups in politics, and they know that when they look at a crowd and say: 'these folks aren't even from here' ... A handful of folks are determined to disrupt these meetings," Durbin said. "That shouldn't stop us from what most Americans want to see us doing."
The remarks made by the two Senate Democrats reflect the overall message coming from the White House and Democratic Party. Asked during the press briefing on Tuesday whether he thought the town hall protests were fabricated chaos from the insurance and private health care industry, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs responded: "Some of it is, yes."
"In fact I think you have had groups today, Conservatives for Patients Rights, that have bragged about organizing and manufacturing that anger," Gibbs said.
Source: Fox Nation
Why is the White House, Democratic Senators and Congressmen and radical liberals making fun of and attacking Americans?? Because they are afraid… afraid of the power of the people if they stand-up and stick together.
Do not let them marginalize you. Main Street and the American Way of Life is under attack like never before.
Posted: Daily Thought Pad
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