By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau
LITTLE ROCK — Efforts to disrupt town hall meetings on health care reform are un-American, U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., said today, though she later issued a statement retracting the remark.
“It’s so sad, because it’s diminishing to the process, it’s diminishing to our outcome,” Lincoln said in a conference call with reporters. “I think it’s sad that they choose to do that. I think it’s un-American and disrespectful.”
A few hours later, Lincoln issued the following statement: “Although I do believe that some of these protesters are disrespectful of other citizens in the audience who truly want to ask questions about health care, I shouldn’t have used the term ‘un-American.’ I support the right of every Arkansan to speak out and have their voices heard. I would just ask that we all continue to work in a constructive way to rebuild our economy and fine-tune out health care system so it works for all of us.”
Lincoln made the comments a day after U.S. Reps. Mike Ross, D-Prescott, and Vic Snyder, D-Little Rock, faced heckles and jeers at a public forum on health care reform at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock. Disruptions have been reported at other lawmakers’ town hall meetings on health care around the country.
Lincoln said the disruptions are not spontaneous.
“There are Web sites that are out there that are telling people and soliciting people to go and disrupt these meetings and to stop this process and to eliminate the opportunity for our country to become stronger by making our health care delivery system more efficient,” she said.
One such solicitation, in a memo authored by Bob MacGuffie of the Web site Tea Party Patriots, urged opponents of health care reform to “spread out in the hall” wherever a lawmaker is holding a town hall meeting.
“Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep.’s statements early. If he blames Bush for something or offers other excuses — call him on it, yell back and have someone else follow-up with a shout-out,” MacGuffie wrote.
“I think there’s definitely organized campaigns, and some of them want to be counterproductive,” Lincoln told reporters. “As some of those talk radio guys have said, they just want to see things fail. They want to see the president fail, they want to see this fail. And I think that’s so sad and so disappointing. We can work together.”
Saline County resident Jeannie Burlsworth, chairman of the conservative grassroots group Secure Arkansas, was in the audience at Wednesday’s forum at Children’s Hospital. Several members of the group attended the forum to ask questions and express their concerns, she said.
“Really, I felt like Congressmen Synder and Ross got off pretty easy, considering (the fact that) the people, they’re scared. … They’re wanting some answers, and rightly so,” Burlsworth said today.
Responding to Lincoln’s comments about disruptions, Burlsworth said, “It’s sad that she can’t feel free to face her constituents and talk to them. … She has to answer to the people she represents. I’m not saying that to hurt anyone. I’m just saying that she’s got to face reality here and realize that she works for the people, not the other way around.”
Also in the audience Wednesday was Bob Porto, an organizer with the Pulaski County Tea Party. Porto said local Tea Party leaders discouraged members from attending because they believed Arkansas Children’s Hospital was not the proper venue.
“Very few of those people in the room did I know,” he said.
Porto said the Pulaski County Tea Party believes in respectful debate and does not support disruptive behavior, but he said many people are understandably frustrated.
“I think we are seeing people who feel that their expression, or their ability to communicate, isn’t being heard, so they’re doing what they can to be heard,” he said.
Lincoln said she encourages people not to “succumb to the shrill and the myths that are out there,” including what she said was a myth that people will not be able to keep the health insurance they have now.
“If they like it, they’re going to be able to maintain what they have,” she said. “We just want to make it better and more efficient so that it costs them less and that their outcomes are better.”
Lincoln is scheduled to return to Arkansas Friday for the August congressional recess. She said she is looking forward to visiting with constituents but has no plans for a town hall meeting on health care.
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Mike Ross, D-Prescott, announced Thursday he will hold a town hall meeting on health care Aug. 14 at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia. The meeting will be Ross’ 37th health care forum since April.
The congressman also said he has launched a Web site on health care.
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On the Net:
http://ross.house.gov/healthcare
August 6th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Looks like Blanche is running scared. There is a problem when a U.S. Senator will not face the public. I bet if a group of farmers held a town hall meeting she would be there. They have nothing to complain about because she bought their votes a long time ago. Hey Blanche are you going to read the bills before you vote? If she would open her eyes she might realize that people get pissed off when their representatives don’t take the time to read the bills they vote on.
How can she be so sure about her statement that a person will not be able to keep their health insurance? The Senate does not have a bill at this time and who is to say what will be in it.
August 6th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
What is sad is how she has treated Arkansans the last 12 years. It is time to make a change. It is our right to protest these events. Or is she too full of the Obama-koolaide, believing thie is all a right-wing conspiricy. I noticed that no one can find a photo of you with Senator Lincoln standing next to President Obama. There are ones of every other Senator in the US Congress, but not one of her. Why is that? She can raise all the money she wants to try and stop Trevor Drown from being the next Senator from Arkansas. But all that does is make it look like she is being bought off. There may not be a credible republican out there that will run against her but that is fine, Arkansas is ready to vote independent!
August 7th, 2009 at 7:10 am
To Lincoln and Obama: Fix Medicare and Medicaid (what you are responsible for today) and then maybe we can trust you with the entire system. It is arrogance beyond belief that you believe you can change something so important, so complex, and so huge all at once. Take this in steps, steps that we can understand.
“A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.”
August 7th, 2009 at 7:46 am
“un-American and disrespectful.” Got caught repeating a Democrat talking point?
August 7th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Its sad to see reliance on the Democratic talking points by the author. The reference to the memo by Bob MacGuffie of the Web site Tea Party Patriots is not proof of a conspiracy to disrupt Lincoln’s meeting. The lefts reliance on this memo was debunked by Mary Katharine Ham in the Weekly Standard, http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2009/08/think_progress_msnbc_manufactu.asp. The Tea Party Patriots is a PAC that was formed by five friends in Connecticut in 2008, and has taken in a whopping $5,017 and disbursed $1,777, according to its FEC filing. He has a Facebook group with 23 members and a Twitter account with five followers. If this intimidates Lincoln, she has more problems that we can imagine.
August 7th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Her Highness is coming back Aug. 11-15 to stride amongst her un-American subjects.
Her daily schedule can be found here.
http://lincoln.senate.gov/newsroom/2009-08-07-1.cfm
I hope none of the uppity, un-American peasants say anything rude to Her Highness during her most gracious visit to the deepest, darkest, most un-American depths of her backwards, hillbilly, un-progressive state.
I mean, that would just be so….so…..so un-American.
August 8th, 2009 at 6:57 pm
We are only a few months away fronm this campaign going into full battle. That is why when Tom Cotton gets back from Afghanistan later this month senior leadership of the State GOP will meet with him and convince him to run. He currently is the only name that has surfaced that has a chance. With his educational credentials, war record and his value system he will lead this race and win it. I and many of my friends look forward to helping him out both economically and by volunteering on his campaign.