Government run health-care workers saves protesters
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WASHPOSTBut, as with a similar rally by Democrats a week before, unpredictable things tend to happen in the wide-open spaces of the Capitol's West Front. Minutes into the rally, a breeze toppled the American flag from the stage.
More ominously, a man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after event began. Medical personnel from the Capitol physician's office -- an entity that could, quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care -- rushed over, attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip.
This turned into an unwanted visual for the speakers, as a D.C. ambulance and firetruck, lights flashing, pulled in just behind the lawmakers. A path was made through the media section, and the patient, attended to by about 10 government medical personnel, was being wheeled away on a stretcher just as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepped to the microphone. "Join us in defeating Pelosi care!" he exhorted. A few members stole a glance at the stretcher. Boehner may have been distracted as well. He told the crowd he would read from the Constitution, then read the "we hold these truths" bit from the Declaration of Independence.
As you'd expect at a political protest, the messages on signs and buttons were provocative: "Waterboard Congress," "A Commie Is in the House."
But this protest was unusual because it was an official House GOP event, and because some of the remarks on the stage were as outrageous as those in the crowd. The actor Jon Voight, standing with the lawmakers, said of Obama: "Could it be he has had 20 years of subconscious programming by Reverend Wright to damn America?"
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By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they denounced government-run health care. But Bachmann overlooked this irony as she said farewell to her recruits.
"You," she said, "are the most beautiful sight any of us freedom fighters have seen for a long time."
Oh and in another ironic moment, Rep. Todd Akin called for the Pledge of Allegiance because "it drives the liberals crazy" to hear it and then flubbed it.
