Last night Alan Colmes brought Bob MacGuffie, the man responsible for the “Rocking The Town Hall” memo that urges right-wing activists to overwhelm and disrupt Congressional town hall meetings by shouting down the speakers and generally causing a commotion.
Needless to say, MacGuffie didn’t see it that way, insisting that outbursts are “not terribly disruptive” and that those that have occurred have been the result of genuine and spontaneous anger at the Democrats’ effort to transform America into a socialist nightmare.
In essence, MacGuffie said, these sorts of tactics are necessary because Democrats “have gotten away with their phony town halls for too long” where they have been allowed to spew their “lies, deceit, and misrepresentation.”
MacGuffie insisted that his goal is merely to get people to ask Representatives questions and hold them accountable, but when Colmes pointed out that urging people shout out and disrupt the event does not generally lead to a fruitful exchange of views, MacGuffie’s response was that “well, hey, passions run deep.”
The interview then took an interesting turn when MacGuffie insisted that these outbursts were aimed at fighting “government intrusion in our lives,” at which point Colmes asked why he wasn’t urging right-wing activists to descend on Republican town hall events when the Bush administration was greatly expanding the scope of government power with things the Patriot Act and warrantless searches.
MacGuffie responded that he doesn’t carry any water for Bush and as Colmes continued to press him as to why, if he is, as he claims, opposed to those who want to increase the power of the state, he wasn’t urging protests of Bush or the Republicans when they were doing exactly that, MacGuffie’s only retort was that “George Bush was awful.”
And that was about the only thing MacGuffie said during the entire 15 minute interview that we can all agree on:
