Staten Island Town Brawl Goes Pretty Much As You Would Expect

Local tea party people warned in advance that Monday's Staten Island health care town brawl with Congressman Michael McMahon would be lively. And voila -- "Health care reform foes dominate meeting with Staten Island congressman," writes the Staten Island Advance. The peeps seem to have gone for the usual anti-big-gummint rhetoric ("Social Security, the IRS, the Post Office, Medicare. Why should we let them into our health care system?"), xenophobia ("I don't want to pay for 41 million illegal aliens, and that's the bottom line"), and belligerence: The president of the local NAACP tried to defend the bill and was shouted down. Nothing appears to have been settled, except that the national movement to turn public forums with government officials into primal therapy sessions continues unabated.