That on-line “town hall” (talk about a tortured metaphor) was, I’m shocked – shocked – to say, stacked with shills.
But while the online question portion of the White House town hall was open to any member of the public with an Internet connection, the five fully identified questioners called on randomly by the president in the East Room were anything but a diverse lot. They included: a member of the pro-Obama Service Employees International Union, a member of the Democratic National Committee who campaigned for Obama among Hispanics during the primary; a former Democratic candidate for Virginia state delegate who endorsed Obama last fall in an op-ed in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star; and a Virginia businessman who was a donor to Obama’s campaign in 2008.
The WP claims this was taking a page from the “Bush playbook”. That’s news to me. Anybody remember when Bush did something like this?