Arlen Specters Town Hall meeting in Lebanon, PA

It would be nice if I knew what was going to be worth watching and what wasn’t as it relates to what is on TV regarding political issues, this is why I rarely watch channels like Fox News, HLN or CNN early in the morning because, to be frank, not only are they boring, but they lack any real substance to their reporting at those times (true, they lack any real substance 99.9% of the time, but its particularly noticeable to me early in the day). So it was to my great surprise when I stumbled upon a town hall meeting on CNN (and Fox News) for Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania.

Let me just say that I learned a lot.

I learned that our elected officials are NOT as smart or INFORMED as many of those who elected them to office.

I learned that, at least in the case of Mr. Specter, there should be an age limit as to how old are elected officials should be.

I learned that there is quite a lot of anger in our nation right now as to how the Obama administration is running things in our country and that that anger seems to cross all political ideologies, socio-economic and age groups.

I also learned Mr. Specter is a first rate politician-answering questions without really answering them and deflecting things which he didn’t understand without letting anyone know that he didn’t understand them-which is why, I’m sure, that Mr. Specter has been in Congress for as long as he has.

During this particular Town Hall meeting, Specter allowed only 30 people to ask questions of him. Of those 30 the best wasn’t a question per se, but more of a statement. This gentleman asked Mr. Specter if it were possible to make it public who writes these bills because, in the case of the current health care proposal before the house, they do not seem to be very American. This same gentleman also asked Mr. Specter to propose that, if American citizens really wanted Federally subsidized health care, that it be put on the ballot in 2010. Needless to say, Mr. Specter was unable to properly respond to this man, he did however say that he would take the idea of putting health care on the ballot referendum for people to vote on en mass in 2010. Personally, I’m not keeping my fingers crossed.

What surprised me more than anything else, while watching this meeting, was how uninformed Mr. Specter was. It was obvious from the first question that Mr. Specter had absolutely no idea what the language is which makes up what we call Obamacare. It was amazing to me that, as question after question was fired at Mr. Specter regarding this legislation, he had no real response to them-at least not one based on fact or policy. As a result he was left with no other recourse but to agree with these people-that they were right and that he wasn’t going to support any bill which apparently said the things which this bill does.

In sum, watching the Town Hall meeting in Lebanon, PA this morning was quite the realization for me as to how poorly informed our Congressional leaders are.

There is a larger Town Hall meeting scheduled for later today in Maine, this one involves Mr. Obama himself, and he is expected to address many of the same issues which were brought up at Mr. Specter’s meeting-particularly those on the health care bill. If I can, and if it is televised, I will be watching and will have my say later…