President Obama recently had an online town hall meeting. I didn’t hear about it on time. I am generally skeptical of the concept–I think blogs and blogging work, but for very different reasons than any “online town hall” format I’ve seen to date. Still, Joe Gandelman has a roundup, and it looks more interesting than I thought.
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The problem with any interaction with the President (outside of a one-on-one format with an adversarial interviewer) is that the President and his staff have an overwhelming motive to control the interaction. But controlling it turns it into simple propaganda for his agenda and not “answering to the people”. Let him go on FoxNews and answer tough questions if he wants an open and transparant administration; otherwise he is just wasting my time.
There’s nothing wrong with the President controlling the agenda in any particular settings. And actually, there’s nothing really technically wrong with propaganda–which is, after all, just a message with a point of view. Propaganda in and of itself is not bad, if it’s not dishonest. If it’s honest, then it’s just people with a point of view making their case. That’s important, especially in a leader.
I simply think that the specific “town hall” format is very weak. There are better formats for getting tough, surprising questions from people who aren’t “professional press.” This is just a format that I’ve rarely seen work (and I still haven’t actually seen all of this latest attempt by the President, so it may be better than previous attempts I’ve seen, I hope to see the whole thing by the weekend).
I see nothing “town hall” about cherry picking the questions you want to answer from a pool of over 100,000. Certainly nothing honest about it.
Obama wants to do a town hall meeting? Then actually do one.
You are right about propaganda, Dean. And Obama is using it in a dishonest fashion. He’s wants to maintain the appearance of “talking to the people” but knowing the questions beforehand? No, that’s blatant dishonesty.
Put out a press release if you want to push an agenda. But covering yourself in some cloak of open discussion when, in fact, you have no actual intention of doing so?
If that’s not dishonest I don’t know what is.
It appears to me that he attempted some sort of format where he wouldn’t know what all the questions would be. That’s something you *can* do in these scenarios. That, to me, still doesn’t get to the essence of why the formula usually doesn’t work.
Somehow all of the “random” questioners ended up being major supporters of Obama during the campaign and election.
To which I hear a resounding “duh!”
What really cracks me up about Obama is how much of the Left’s caricature of Bush he is turning into reality.
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