Katherine Kersten: Left protests too much over the town halls

Protesters and citizens asking angry questions have flooded the "town halls" where congressional representatives have tried to sell President Obama's health care reform agenda to the American people.

The protesters have stolen the show, with 69 percent of Americans telling pollsters they are following the story closely. Town-hall-goers -- some raucous -- are probing costs, are raising questions about government encroachment on private life, and are deploring the fact that few legislators seem to have read the 1,000-page health care reform bill. Democrats have often had trouble answering credibly.

The protesters are having an impact. Last week, the administration appeared to pull back on the "public option" as a centerpiece of Obama's reform agenda.

I thought folks on the left loved protesters -- the rowdier, the better. Liberals are fond of reminding us that free speech is sacred, and that dissent -- "speaking truth to power" -- is a patriotic duty. Remember the 2008 Republican National Convention? The ACLU of Minnesota went to court to win a parade permit that would have allowed thousands of protesters, including anarchists who had vowed to shut down the convention, to encircle St. Paul's Xcel Energy Center, where delegates convened.

Today's town hall protesters get no such respectful treatment. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has branded them "evil-mongers." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer have labeled them "un-American." Left-wing journalists have mocked them as buffoons, extremists and crazies.

Most significantly, some Democratic leaders have charged that town hall protesters are not ordinary citizens speaking from the heart, as they appear to be. Instead, they are puppets, part of an "ugly campaign" -- in Pelosi's and Hoyer's words -- orchestrated by shadowy special interests.

If you know town-hall-goers, as I do, you know that most learned about the meetings from friends, through e-mails or on talk radio. They are urgently concerned about a government health care takeover and speak for a huge, largely leaderless sector of the nation.

To hear Democratic leaders denounce them, though, you'd think that evil behemoths like Big Pharma are pulling these protesters' strings. Whoops! The inconvenient truth is that on ObamaCare, Big Pharma and other fat cats are lining up on the Democrats' side.

Obama won drugmakers' support by cutting a deal with them. Under the proposed system, Big Pharma expects to reap millions in profits from new government health care subsidies. In return, its leaders have agreed to spend $150 million on a TV ad drive promoting ObamaCare -- a sum larger than John McCain laid out for advertising in his entire campaign, according to news reports.

It's odd, too, to hear Democrats denounce grass-roots organizing as sinister. Their allies wrote the book on "netroots," and groups such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) and MoveOn.org helped put Obama and friends over the top in the 2008 elections. These organizations have eye-popping budgets and Washington offices, while town hall protesters pass on e-mails to their neighbors from their kitchens after work.

The greatest irony, of course, is that Barack Obama -- our health care reformer-in-chief -- rose to America's highest office by using skills he mastered as a "community organizer."

Obama cut his political teeth on Chicago's gritty South Side, where he focused on mobilizing black churches as a path to power. He learned the ropes from lieutenants of the legendary Saul Alinsky, a Marxist street agitator whose 1971 "Rules for Radicals" laid out how to mobilize people by fueling their anger and building on their self-interest. Alinsky preached ruthless power politics, including "direct action." He once reportedly advised opponents of George H.W. Bush to dress as Klan members and wave signs supporting him at a rally.

Obama has written and taught about community organizing, and he has served on foundation boards that support it. Announcing his presidential bid, he said the "best education" he had received was not at Columbia University or Harvard Law School, but in Chicago.

When Obama was elected to the U.S. Senate, Michelle Obama told a reporter, "Barack is not a politician first and foremost. He's a community activist exploring the viability of politics to make change."

So don't mourn for an administration that may seem to be reeling from town hall setbacks. Obama's minions are busy with some "community organizing" of their own.

Obama knows, as an aide has reportedly threatened, how to "punch back twice as hard" when opponents challenge him. His administration is moving to overwhelm town hall protesters with its own troops, assisted by a carpet-bombing media campaign financed with Big Pharma's big money.

Katherine Kersten is a Twin Cities writer and speaker. Reach her at kakersten@gmail.com.