Rep. Melissa Bean's Jackbooted… Librarians?

by: warner todd huston | published: 08 26, 2010

Last week a shocking video of a townhall of sorts held by Chicago, Illinois area Congressman Melissa Bean (D, 8th District) was released that seemed to show that she'd hired a couple of thugs to intimidate attendees from asking her questions that she didn't want to answer.

The video kicked up a bit of controversy on both sides of the aisle. Conservatives pointed out that Rep. Bean was not only avoiding questions from her constituents, but sending her thugs to discourage those questions. Liberals said that the video was heavily edited and that the thugs were really merely "security guards" hired by the library, not Bean's thugs.

But the liberal's protest that these guys were "just" security guards hired by the library that was hosting the meeting does not explain why these guys walked over to the audience members to tower over them as they attempted to ask the Congressman a question. If these guys were not hired by Bean and if they were just there to assure that the townhall went without violence, they would more likely not have been interested in what participants were saying but only should they have gotten out of hand. None of the videos, not the admittedly edited one, nor the uncut one, shows anyone getting out of hand. No one attending this meeting was in need of the intervention of library "security" agents.

A new video shows a library employee being asked about the so called security officers, why they were hired, and why these security officers kept screening the congressman from questions.

A post at Dan Riehl's website makes a good point about this whole incident.

It's an admittedly small slice of subtle tyranny, if you believe public officials work for the citizen in the case of the Representative, the security guard and the library director. In fact, each works to play its role as one to sustain itself at the cost of the citizen's rights.

There is another small point to deal with concerning this townhall. I said above that it was a "townhall of sorts." I say of sorts because the meeting also had a community service message as a part of the proceedings. A speaker was also there with Rep. Bean to talk of credit cards. So, as it happens the "townhall" was only partially a townhall. A large portion of the time was taken up with this speaker, time that was not available for questions to the Congressman to address her constituents' questions.

Who doesn't doubt that the lack of time suited the congressman just fine? In my opinion, as far as Rep. Bean was concerned the less time she had to take questions from her constituents the better. This event seemed geared to give her an excuse to evade questions while at the same time being able to claim that she did, indeed, hold a "townhall."

Like most Democrats serving her constituents is all smoke and mirrors.

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