Saturday, September 5, 2009

Pompous congressman anyone?

Does anyone want a pompous Congressman? The Ninth District of Indiana has one they might like to part with...



This video is from Rep. Baron Hill's townhall meeting. A young lady was told she was not allowed to film the meeting because it's 'against the rules'...whatever those rules are. (I seem to remember something in the ultimate law of our land about freedom of the press...)

From the Congressman's 'answer'- "Now let me repeat that one more time. This is my townhall meeting for you. And you're not gonna' tell me how to run my Congressional office. Now the reasons why I don't allow filming is because usually the films that are done end up on YouTube in a compromising position."

#1- I thought the whole purpose of a townhall meeting was so that the congressman could answer the people's questions, and they could check up on how good of a job he was doing. Not the other way around.

#2- Sorry, Rep. Hill, but you are accountable to those people you're talking to, did you know that? In fact, they hired you. And if they don't like you, you'll be out of a job. Very quickly. (Let us hope that Rep. Hill will find himself without a job come next election.)

#3- don't you just love the irony? (I got this on YouTube, in case it wasn't obvious. ^.^)

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4 comments:

Alex said...

Poor guy, all he's trying to do is prevent himself from being photo shopped to look like Hitler. However, I'm not going to stand up for him too much, because he's actually a pretty conservative democrat. He barely makes the cut, too. If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was a republican.

Kyla Denae said...

But the people have a right to film anything they want. All that stuff about free speech and freedom of the press in the Constitution? Maybe, rather than trying to prevent people exercising their Constitutional rights, he should examine why people think his words put him in a 'compromising situation'.

For the record, I tried to find the entire 70 minute meeting. Nothing.

Alex said...

Like I said, I'm not really going to stand up for him, because he's actually pretty conservative. But at the same time, it's important to mention that the whole thing was filmed for the record and that the people trying to film were not the media, but students and there for freedom of the press doesn't apply.

Kyla Denae said...

The girl in the video said she was a journalism student. And yes, freedom of the press does apply. Nowadays, we have blogs. People who have blogs are, in many respects, reporters. Even if they aren't, they have the freedom to film/write/say anything they want about the kind of job any congressman is doing.