I have great respect for Krauthammer, but I think that the effect of these town halls on the Congresscritters standing before them is important. They are not staged for TV. The people come to tell the elected official their opinion, and the opinion comes through, loud and clear.
Now the politician can decide whether to ignore that opinion, and face electoral extinction, or abide by that opinion, and keep his nice cushy seat in Washington. This is not a tough choice for them.
I do too, but I think Charles has bought into the lie that it's just Republicans and conservatives at these townhalls. It is not - there are indies & dems scared *&^$-less about this attempt by Obama to seize control over their end-of-life decisions.
Out of all the thousands & thousands of scientists in the country Barack Obama might have chosen to serve as his "Science Czar", he somehow managed to pick a 'scientist' whose major claim to fame is that he once said "The elderly have the patriotic duty to die."
You don't have to be a Republican to be concerned about what his real intentions are here. These people need to get face to face with their democratic constituents & see that the fear in their eyes is just as obvious.
The same President who is barring dissenters from his own Town Halls, who is telling the opposition to "Shut Up", has his congressional enforcers call them Nazis and is asking his union thugs to report anybody who dares disagree with any part of the bill to the White House also wants us to just "trust" him that he'll lend an understanding ear to hear dissent later when his bureaucrats decide to yank the plug on our grandmothers?
Presumably he's putting his best foot forward right now while trying to sell the public on his ambition take over the medical industry, yet he doesn't even bother to pretend to disguise his callous arrogant contempt for the citizenry's objections now? How callously contemptuous will he be of the public's fears when he's given complete unilateral control over the citizenry's end-of-life decisions - including those of his fellow democrats?