Well, I attended a pretty contentious town hall meeting this morning -- organized by my congressman, Pete Stark.

Pete Stark, held his own, though. When one of the anti-reform people kept referring to things in the House bill -- that weren't there -- Pete tried to reasonable, by pointing out that there was a lot of misinformation about the House bill. But the guy kept interrupting Pete shouting "Have you *read* the bill?! Have you read the bill?!" Finally in exasperation Pete responded, "I WROTE the bill." That let some wind out that guy's sails.

The Minutemen were there filming the audience (I kid you not!). For all the right-wing paranoia about the Obama administration taking names, they were definitely pretty creepy about their monitoring efforts.

I was very disappointed by the local Dems, who, although they though handed out pro-reform signs and stickers, they tried to get us all to promise to be polite and courteous. Even though Pete held his own, the right-wing crowd definitely dominated the meeting by their obnoxiousness. You can't face down bullies by being passive -- and any videos of the event would have given the impression that the right wingers were in the majority -- when in actuality they were in the minority.

Although the anti-reform bullies may have been a third of the audience (say 50 people out of 150) and dominated the meeting with their jeers and heckling, as they walked out of the hall they had to face a huge crowd of 300 or 400 people (who came too late to get in) who had assembled outside chanting for health care reform. Some of wingnut bluster evaporated when they left meeting seeing so many pro-reform people outside. I noticed a few hiding their signs. Heh, heh.