Townhall Downfall: Astroturf Doctors?
Rory Cooper /
You may have seen yesterday’s video of Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) speaking on her cell phone while a cancer survivor spoke to her about health care reform. Well now comes news that the pro-Obamacare voices in the crowd were not entirely legitimate. A primary care physician identified as Dr. Roxana Meyer stood up and praised the President’s health care plan for overhauling a broken system. Meyer said: “I don’t know what there is in the bill that creates such panic.” The Congresswoman asked the crowd to give her a round of applause for being a doctor, hugged her and then asked “How long have you been practicing?” to which “Dr.” Meyer answered “Four years,” which was followed by more applause and a gushing grin on the face of “Dr.” Meyer. The problem? Roxana Meyer is not a doctor, but rather an Obama campaign delegate.
In fact, Roxana Meyer was sitting in the audience with a friend who also worked for the Obama campaign and was famously photographed hanging a Che Guevara revolutionary flag above her official Obama campaign office desk. The Houston Chronicle, which reported on the townhall and highlighted the exchange, knew that Ms. Meyer was an Obama delegate but was unaware she was not a doctor. The Chronicle did not report her campaign background, but has since updated their website to reflect she is not a physician. In responding to inquiries, Roxana Meyer says she possessed “spontaneity” in her deception and she thought it would “help her credibility.” Yes, she gave all Obamacare supporters loads of credibility today. We hope that the President’s chorus will denounce her actions as loudly as they have protested regular parents, citizens, students who have driven themselves to their representative’s townhalls to ask serious questions about the “reform” of one sixth of the U.S. economy.