The President recently held an “online townhall” that was supposed to allow members of the public to ask the President a question via the internet.  It turns out that the White House screened and choreographed which questions would get to be asked.

If instead of an open forum where members of the public can stand up and ask their questions this is going to be a carefully-choreographed bit of political theater where the White House controls who gets to ask which question, then why should Obama be allowed to call it a “townhall”?

I actually think these “debates” and “townhalls” where the questions are asked via the internet are bogus.  There’s no real public involvement there. During the campaign, the “YouTube” debate questions were still picked by the same journalists who would have been asking the questions anyway.  And as we can see from this “townhall” event when a specific politician runs it the format simply allows for them to take all the questions they want to answer while avoiding all the ones they don’t want to.

It’s bogus.  If the President really wants to take questions from the public let him go to an open public event and take questions.  But let’s recognize this nonsense for what it is.

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