Rifle-Toting Protester Part of Staged Radio Interview

Consequences will be felt in November midterm elections

(NEWSER) - The midterm elections are poised to shake up the political landscape, a consequence that Peggy Noonan traces directly back to the volatile town hall meetings of last summer. "Neither the Republicans nor the Democrats saw it coming," she writes of the movement. "But it was a seminal moment, and whatever is coming in November, it started there." Noonan goes so far as to liken the activity to Iranian unrest, given that most of the coverage came on the web and YouTube. More»

(AP) - Former President Jimmy Carter says Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst during President Obama's speech last week was an act "based on racism." Carter says Wilson's comment was part of an "inherent feeling" of some that a black man should not be president. In responding to a question at a town-hall meeting at his presidential center in Atlanta, Carter also called Wilson's comment "dastardly" and said the president should be treated with respect. More»

(NEWSER) - To listen to the Obama camp and the liberal media, the anti-Obamacare protesters at last month’s town halls are a grave threat to our way of life, Mary Katharine Harn writes in the Weekly Standard. But “the climate of paranoia and violence that enveloped our political system this August was largely a creation” of the people who railed against it (think Olbermann and Matthews). In more than 400 meetings, “there were fewer than ten documented incidents that could be described as violent.” More»

Let's reform health care, as long as it can stay the same

(NEWSER) - If you listen to pandering politicians or ranting radio hosts, you’d think Americans want big, far-reaching change right away. They might disagree on what change, but nobody likes the way things are. Well, you’d be wrong, writes Michael Kinsley for the Washington Post. As the health care debate so vividly demonstrates, once change becomes a concrete possibility, Americans panic. More»

(AP) - John McCain met with an angry crowd at a town hall meeting about health care reform yesterday, sometimes having to fight to talk and telling one woman who wouldn't stop shouting that she had to leave. The senator hadn't yet opened the meeting to questions when one audience member continuously yelled over him. McCain had security escort her out, saying, "Goodbye, see ya." More»