DADvocate

From Jim Geraghty in National Review

The night offered a few lessons as Congress prepares to return, most notably that criticism and avoidance were the exact wrong response for the Democrats to make to the town-hall protesters. Since the first exhibitions of public skepticism and fury over the president’s proposed health-care bill, many members have found a newfound appreciation of “tele-town halls” or invitation-only events.

It’s easy to forget that all of these members asked for the job of representing their districts, and presumably knew full well that listening to constituents came with the territory. In a world where even a Little League umpire hears some boos, a lawmaker too delicate to withstand salty variations of “the bill stinks” and “you stink if you vote for it” probably ought to contemplate the lucrative options of post-elective life. There are few things in today’s politics more unseemly than lawmakers’ expressions of terror at the thought of departing their hermetically sealed environment of civility and obsequiousness populated by agreeable staffers and favor-seeking power brokers.

Of course, people who truly deplore violence would be more concerned about the violence of the left.