Democrats Push Back... Hard.

The first question I have to ask myself is:

If Kenneth Gladney, Black conservative activist, as Fox feels the need to remind us, was allegedly injured by "SEIU thugs" badly enough to get sent to the hospital at Rep. Carnahan's Town Hall on aging last night, then who paid his hospital bills?

On Neil Cavuto's show, Glory to the Fatherland!, Cavuto featured Gladney and ambulance chaser David B. Brown to get their take on what happened in St. Louis last night. Gladney said in the second half of the interview that he's unemployed, which almost surely means that, unless he can afford thousands per month in COBRA payments, he has no health insurance. So who foots the bill? The hospital? Astroturf activists bankrolling these domestic terrorist attacks on health care Town Hall meetings? The taxpayers of Carnahan's district who were legitimately there?

What's despicable is Cavuto trying to fan the flames by alleging that perhaps this was racially motivated, which is ridiculous because there were several African American union members who were right there in the thick of it. Note at 5:28 in, the caption reads, "Gladney on Claims Town Hall Protests Were Racially Motivated," even though the claims were coming from Cavuto himself. Despite even Gladney not falling for it.

Note at 7:14 Gladney admits to not having any opinion whatsoever on the health care debate, which automatically invites two questions: #1 Why is this guy being trotted out by Cavuto and Co. as the poster child for Democrat thuggery and #2, if he didn't have an opinion on the health care debate, then what the hell was he doing there in the first place? Are we to believe that he was merely there to sell little "Don't Tread on Me" flags?

Note, also, that seconds after this startling revelation, Cavuto then asks Gladney if special interest groups put him up to showing up at the Town Hall and this time Gladney plays ball and says, "Oh, no, I was there of my own free will." Despite having no dog on either side of this fight.

Cavuto is obviously trying to absolve the GOP and special interest groups from any responsibility whatsoever, as if what happened between health care advocates and Glenn Beck fans in Tampa two nights ago never happened, as if cardboard effigies of congressmen weren't hung and tarred and feathered. If we can just prove that this one poor man wasn't there through a special interest agenda, then they're completely blameless, comrades!


Here's the raw video. Notice the SEIU member, another African American male, holding his left shoulder after the scuffle, suggesting that perhaps he was even more seriously injured than Gladney. But since he's a union member, note that he wasn't invited on Cavuto's show to tell his side of the story so Fox can, you know, offer some fair and balanced reporting.

Note, also, that the tape doesn't start rolling until after Gladney hits the deck. Nowhere on the videotape do you hear anyone, SEIU or otherwise, calling Gladney a "nigger." Nowhere on the tape do you see Gladney actually getting struck or kicked as he'd alleged. Yet a union member toward the end of this raw footage is plainly seen getting put into handcuffs.

I'm not saying that Gladney wasn't assaulted. I'm not even saying that someone didn't call Gladney a racial epithet. All we know from this, the primary source of Cavuto's footage, is that none of his allegations are documented.

And considering the escalating hostilities coming from these astroturfers who largely don't even live in these districts, none of them can bleat about having their rights violated or even being assaulted considering what recently happened in Tampa, Florida.

Even if it comes out that Rep. Carnahan personally invited the SEIU to be his Guardian Angels in this political version of Altamont, then I won't fault him. It's obvious that the summer's only going to get longer, hotter and tempers are only going to get nastier. And if they want to sabotage health care Town Halls like the domestic terrorists that they are, then I don't want to hear any whining about Democrat thuggery and having their bellowing, incoherent words drowned out.

In the end, it really doesn't matter what either side says because Congress has already made up its collective little mind on one thing, if nothing else: That single payer is out, that it was never an option and the government's own involvement may be more limited than ever with the co-op strategy gaining traction again. It doesn't matter what either side thinks because the health care debate will be decided in the halls of Congress and not Town Halls or listening tours.

If Gladney had an ounce of brain matter between his ears, he'd realize that the SEIU members and the progressives of Carnahan's district were there to fight for him to get health coverage whether or not he has a job.