Constituent Backlash Follows Adam Schiff Town Hall: 'Extraordinarily Corrupt Proceeding'; 'Rally for Universal Health Care'

There's a backlash afoot in the wake of Representative Adam Schiff's town hall even last Tuesday. My report on the event is here.

Here's a letter, from constituent John Nally, forwarded to me from the Pasadena Tea Party:

My wife, Kathy, and I attended the event you sponsored, directed and controlled at the Alhambra Library Center yesterday. We knew that your views on health care reform did not agree with ours; but we never expected to witness such an extraordinarily corrupt proceeding as the one you produced.

In your pre-event promotional efforts, you named this event a "Town Hall Meeting". I have attended and participated in many Town Hall Meetings throughout my lifetime. Your event last night was not a Town Hall Meeting in any sense of the term. In fact, your event was nothing but a unilateral propaganda effort that was rife with false assertions, half-truths, and insulting rhetoric, aimed at your constituents who happen to oppose your position on the Obama plans for medical care reform.

It was clear that the panel you handpicked to dominate the proceedings was put there to "run out the clock" in order to minimize your exposure to questions from your constituents who do not agree with you.

Your few feeble attempts to answer questions revealed to us a personal and, therefore, professional weakness of which we were unaware up to this point. But we were truly shocked by your rhetoric: your half-truths, your outright lies, your denigrating and dismissive attitude and behavior in vaguely addressing those who disagree with your position. We were extremely disappointed in our Congressman.

You "selected" only one question from the hundreds of written questions that were dutifully submitted by your constituents to your staff earlier in the evening. A screening process at that level of meticulous scrutiny crosses over the line into paranoia.

It was obvious that you had planned all along to move the event from the advertised meeting room to the outside so that constituents could not use a microphone at a podium. Your cynical and manipulative tactics in this regard prevented all other constituents in attendance from hearing the questions directly, as and when they were asked.

You, instead, manipulated an honest opportunity to engage with your constituents in a democratic process, the hallmark of legitimate Town Hall Meetings, into a corrupt process of having all questions filtered and manipulated by one of your minions at the only microphone on the stage.

The image of you and your minions, on an elevated stage, controlling the only microphone, and filtering and paraphrasing, to suit your own agenda, all messages sent up to you from your constituents below, will remain in the minds of all who were there last night, all the way up to, and including, election day, November, 2010, i.e., an elected official, talking down to his constituents.

Frankly, your performance was an embarrassment to your constituents. It will be remembered and spoken of often, in the California 29th Congressional District, as a pivotal point in our District's inevitable (after your performance last night) return to representative democracy by your removal from office.

John J. Nally

Plus, here's an anonymous comment published at my post, "Astroturf at Adam Schiff Town Hall":

Adam Schiff turned this "townhall" into a rally FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. I was there with my husband, sister and brother and the OBAMA ACORN people were angry and would not let us speak. We started chanting "READ THE BILL" and some kid in a USC Keck Hall Doctor t-shirt (probably borrowed by a hard working pre-med student) got in my and my sisters face and told us to read the bill and to shut up. He then told me to take the bill out of my purse (what?) and start reading it. I told him I was NOT THE CONGRESSMAN - Adam Schiff was and it was my right to speak. He kept starring us down and making nasty comments to us the entire RALLY. IT WAS NOT A TOWNHALL. IT WAS TURNED INTO A RALLY. I BET SCHIFF got the word from the Whitehouse to not allow questions unless they were ACORN people. Very enlightening. Made us more angry and against this bogus bill than before I came. Adam Schiff was a total Pussy.