In Part 1 of this article I described the events leading up to the moment everyone had been anticipating for weeks: the opportunity to hear Congressman Holt defend his support of the Obamacare proposal and question him on various aspects of the proposed legislation. I had the chance to speak with an area mayor as well as constituents waiting on line to get in.

The structure of the Q & A was arranged differently than that of the Pallone town hall: instead of offering an open microphone for constituents to ask their questions, Mr. Holt arranged for his aides to hand out slips of paper to everyone in order for them to write their question out along with their name and the town they lived in. The slips would then be collected and the Congressman would draw randomly from the pile and answer accordingly.

This approach has both positive and negative aspects to it: on the positive side, it prevents a would-be questioner from filibustering, which tends to eat up a lot of time. This is precisely what happened at the Pallone event, when a Moveon Obamabot prattled  incessantly without getting to her point.

On the negative side, the Congressman cannot be backed into a corner by an embarrassing question. As you will see during the Q & A segment, there were many instances where Mr. Holt read the question silently and then placed the slip down on the table while reaching for another.

The Congressman began the event by explaining why he supported HR 3200. Opponents of the legislation - most of whom have actually read it and can cite from it by both section number and page number - were in no mood for bullshit and when they sensed he was shoveling it in their direction, they let him know loudly and clearly.

Supporters of the legislation did not appreciate this, but that’s too farking bad. Like I said yesterday, the time for calm, civil discourse is over. The days of “loyal opposition” and bipartisan support have drawn to a close. Besides, most of these Obamabot idiots never bothered to read the legislation; as with every other issue, they implicitly trust the good intentions of the Democrats in Congress and Obama in the White House. Their constant whining about wanting to hear what the Congressman had to say and having a true desire to be informed about the legislation fell on deaf ears. If they had any intelligence or common sense, they’d be booing along with the 70% of the crowd who opposes it.

Congressman Holt spoke for a little over 20 minutes before moving on to the Q & A; I edited out portions at the beginning that were unrelated to the health care issue and got it down to about 16 and a half minutes. Since Youtube will process only ten minutes of footage I had to break the video down into two parts (that is the reason I posted this so late - creating these videos is extremely time consuming). There is no need for commentary on either video: Congressman Holt does a better than adequate job of hanging himself without my help.

Rush Holt on Obamacare, Part 3-A:

Rush Holt on Obamacare, Part 3-B:

I’ll say this for Mr. Holt: his voice is well modulated, with a pleasing timbre. He is articulate and eloquent.  After he’s voted out of office in 2010, he could begin a second career in radio broadcasting - perhaps at NPR.

The best part, of course, is the Q & A and while this one lacked the spontaneity of direct questioning, the opponents of Obamacare did not miss an opportunity to speak out when the moment called for them to do so.

Below are highlights from the roughly 75 minute long session. As with the Congressman’s opening remarks, the accrued video is simply too long to present in a single clip. The first part of the Q & A session will be posted tonight.

In Part 3 tomorrow I will post the remainder of the town hall Q & A - including an exchange between an area radiologist and Congressman Holt that is priceless.