You know that Michele doesn't believe in taking live, unscreened questions in public from her constituents anymore. (She doesn't believe in taking live, unscreened questions from non-partisan *reporters* anymore, either, apparently.)
I sent in my story about my own experience of one of her screened-by-her-operatives question and answer sessions. Karl Bremer sent in his account. Here's one more history of someone trying to ask their Congresswoman a question, with the same unhappy result.
This a piece from the Stillwater Gazette written by someone who has no connection with this blog. All she is, is a poor little Bachmann constituent, God help her:
About six months ago when I was home on winter break from college, I answered a phone call from Representative Michele Bachmann. The call was a "tele-town hall," in which Representative Bachmann conducts a town hall meeting over the phone with her constituents...
...I wanted to ask Representative Bachmann to consider renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, as part of her energy policy, which mainly consists of dependence on drilling in ANWR and offshore.
Unfortunately, the call ended before I was able to ask my own question, but Representative Bachmann instructed listeners to leave a message with their unanswered questions and promised to have a staff member call back. I left a detailed message about renewable energy, but I was never contacted by one of Representative Bachmann's staff members.
Well, that's tough, kid. But if it makes you feel any better, Karl and I had the same experience, a year apart. You stay on the line, listening to the calls they *do* take (mostly from callers praising Bachmann's performance) and then--what do you know, they've run out of time, sorry about that, she won't be taking your question (which the screener asks for in advance.)
But this kid was a political science major, she wasn't giving up so easy. She went back for more:
Now I'm home from my spring semester of college, and just this past week I received a second tele-town hall phone call from Representative Bachmann. I decided to give her another chance. This time a staff member came on the phone right away and asked my name and question. She said I would be one of the next callers to speak to Representative Bachmann. My question was about public transportation policy. I wanted to know why Representative Bachmann has opposed the Hiawatha Light-Rail Transit project and what role she sees public transportation playing in Minnesota's future. I remained on the line, eager to finally talk directly to my representative. I waited patiently while many other constituents asked questions, but I was never put through. Once again, I left a detailed message with my question, and once again, my message was never returned and my question was never answered.
If you're paying attention, you can see a "pattern" developing here. The Bachmann staffers must think it's pretty funny, keeping constituents waiting on the line twenty minutes, an hour, whatever--waiting to ask questions that Bachmann has no intention of answering.
It's not that she doesn't take questions. If she *likes* the question the caller wants to ask, she may take it. But if she doesn't like the questions...well, I was on the phone waiting a long time, and I didn't hear any questions from constiuents who were critical of MB's performance as a representative--and we know from the last election that more than fifty per cent of the voters are unhappy with her. So that's quite a coincidence, that no critical questions made it on the air.
Of course this isn't "a town hall meeting" at all--it seems to be patterned on conservative talk radio, where the host takes only the questions that he feels like answering.
And we know the process is expensive. Who is paying for this shit? Is this coming out of our tax dollars, this talk radio show she's running in place of live town meetings? That's the way to bet. I'd ask her about that, but she won't take my questions.
This writer doesn't know it, but she's *lucky.* There was one constituent that wrote in to a local paper that he actually flew out to Washington to ask her his question, after her office failed to respond. She wouldn't even see him! The poor bastard got stopped cold outside her office by staffers.
Well, I like to see the bright side of things, so after reading about this political science major's experience, I think: "At least she did *learn* something about Michele Bachmann." The hard way.
Personal note: I, Bill Prendergast, will be using this space to celebrate an old fashioned Roman triumph this weekend. It will be my celebration of my conquest of the Star Tribune, after a four year campaign to get them to change their editorial policy re: covering Bachmann. There will be elephants, dancing slave girls, etc. It will be a long article, so I am running it on the weekend. Everyone is invited; be sure to show up to yell "Ave, Prender!" BYOB
Here's the link to the Stillwater Gazette story. It was mentioned in the comments, so thanks to you (you know who you are): http://www.stillwatergazette.com/articles/2009/06/30/opinion/opinion410.txt |
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