Right-wing pundits tear into 11-year-old girl for asking Obama a question
Published: August 12, 2009
Updated 6 months ago
Julia Hall may be the most hated 11-year-old among conservative pundits in America today.
Ever since the sixth-grade resident of Malden, Massachusetts, asked President Barack Obama a question at his town hall on health care Tuesday, the conservative punditocracy has unleashed a torrent of criticism against the girl, accusing her of being an Obama plant.
“As I was walking in, I saw a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reforming health care,” Hall asked the president when the microphone was handed to her. “How do kids know what is true, and why do people want a new system that can — that help more of us?”
The president responded with a long polemic on the false rumors that the health reform bill before Congress would create “death panels” that would deny medical care to the elderly.
On his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said the president’s town hall meeting was “a stacked deck. That thing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was totally phony. The little girl that asked a question is the daughter of a huge Obama supporter.”
One blogger, a Dr. Theo at Dakota Voice, alleged that he could see a “mysterious” woman mouthing the girl’s questions as the 11-year-old spoke.
The blogger pointed to a video purportedly showing “a blonde hair woman to [Julia's mother Kathleen] Manning Hall’s left who is mouthing the words as little Julia speaks! Who is this woman? How does she know exactly what Julia is about to say?”
While the video shows a woman to Hall’s left moving her lips as Hall spoke, it is not clear that she was mouthing the girl’s words. An article in the Boston Globe notes that Julia Hall’s mother had her write down the question beforehand. Manning Hall said she was “shocked” when her daughter asked to ask a question of the president.
Nonetheless, “the critics point to campaign donations and other partisan links of the girl’s mother, Kathleen Manning Hall, who was an early Obama supporter and donated money to his campaign,” writes Travis Andersen at Boston.com’s Your Town blog. “But a White House spokesman insisted that audience members are selected randomly.”
Author and pundit Michelle Malkin pointed out that Kathleen Manning Hall, the girl’s mother, “has donated thousands of dollars to Obama, as has her law firm.”
Added Malkin: “Now, look for Dems to play the kiddie human shield card to the hilt. Anyone who mentions Hall’s political pedigree will be attacked as a vicious meanie stalker.”
That comment betrayed what is perhaps the explanation for the anti-health reform movement’s criticism of the young girl. A photogenic 11-year-old becoming the poster child (perhaps literally) for the health care reform movement could damage the Republican effort to derail health reform.
An editorial in the Washington Times seems to follow this line of thinking.
“The most insufferable moment of the ‘town-hall’ meeting was when 13-year-old Julia Hall [sic] from Malden, Mass., read a question from a card about seeing ‘a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reform in health care’,” the editorial states. “It’s a sad commentary on the health care debate that the president has to resort to this kind of stunt to attempt to insulate his plan from criticism.”
For her part, Julia Hall appears to be happy just to have been part of the debate, telling the Globe that talking to the president was “incredible.”
“It was like a once in a lifetime experience,” she said.
But Limbaugh and Malkin may be unhappy to hear that the sixth-grader told the Globe “she’d like to run for office someday, maybe even for president.”
“It would be awesome if I could work in politics,” she said.
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The Washington Times, Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s rightwing vanity rag, doesn’t even get the girls age right:
The most insufferable moment of the “town-hall” meeting was when 13-year-old Julia Hall from Malden, Mass., read a question from a card about seeing “a lot of signs outside saying mean things about reform in health care.”
Maybe it’s because wingnut readers have idiot kids, and their 11 year olds are all in summer school repeating the 4th grade and wouldn’t even recognize the President. Making the girl older lets them compare her to their older kids.
They should have said “when 19 year old Julia Hall, from Malden, Mass”…
Oh, fucking please! The right wing is bitching about “stacked crowds” now? How about the people who were refused entry into Bush events for anyone that even looked like they wouldn’t support Bush? How about the pledges people used to have to sign? Give me a fucking break! These wingnuts know no boundaries. Picking on an 11 yr old…shame on the whole lot of the bastards!
Yeah, no shit…….I was just thinking about the same thing.
More projection. It’s a neo-conservative mental illness……..
The right wing invented the stacked town hall and is now exploiting the fact that the Democrats actually support free speech—we wouldn’t be hearing all the shouting if we were the fascists they claim. They just hate that they lost.
Malkin’s a crazyeyes, Limbaugh’s a fat addict, and …I mean, is that the best they got? Attacking a girl?
Ok so the only thing that changed were the names and parties, not the tactics. Do you people have any idea that people don’t see things through the same manufactured dialogue that you fools do? Both sides do the same things and criticize both sides when they do the same things. That is why there are many people who aren’t brainwashed by a political spinster of their liking, who think you people are seriously deranged. We were just as disgusted when Bush used most of these similar tactics, but astroturfing is a molehill, compared to warrantless wiretapping, expansion of executive power, loss of civil liberties, etc.
Republicans Are A Disease
http://www.RepublicansAreADisease.com
Yeah, and single party rule rocks!
The Limbaugh, Malkin, etal commentaries are completely predictable. What’s despicable is that the Washington Times would subscribe to the same line in an editorial. Where is their proof that the President ‘resorted to such tactics’? Did Karl Rove start ghost writing the Washington Slimes editorials or something?
Did Murdoch buy them too? Here’s hoping they get email bombed and completely written off for having zero credibility as a journalistic source for news and commentary.
This is beyond shameful!
The Wash Times is the newsprint equivalent of Fox “news”. Founded by the Rev. S. Y. Moon- international smuggler, money-launderer and probably worse- it was started as a right-wing propaganda sheet. It had near zero creditability until the Bushies attempted to elevate its status to that of the Post’s. As Wikipedia recounts: “historian Thomas Frank linked the Times to the modern American conservative movement, saying:
There is even a daily newspaper—the Washington Times—published strictly for the movement’s benefit, a propaganda sheet whose distortions are so obvious and so alien that it puts one in mind of those official party organs one encounters when traveling in authoritarian countries.[32] “.
No need for Murdoch to buy them. Moon’s on the case.
Future of a Nation that can not trust the Government & Propaganda Media?
DNC & RNC have sold out the country in order to enrich themselves
Chronic lying as career path, intellectual prostitution for paycheck
No justice nor accountability equal Rage Against The Machine
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me
Does the Government & Propaganda Media lie to you?
Mussolini Corporate State, Subversion of Democracy
Poodles, Puppets, Sham debates, & Scam elections
Wall Street Bailout Bill: Bush McCain Obama et al.
AIPAC 9/11 Bankers Extortion Blackmail Bribery
Independents agree on more than we disagree
Elite Ruling Class Greed or public servants?
Speak no evil, hear no evil, see no evil?
Honesty compassion conscience guts?
Both parties are corrupt to the core
Beware the divide and conquer
Whistle-Blower leaks multiply
A very RawStory on PressTV
InfoWars on a PrisonPlanet
Israel-first dual-nationals
Gung-Ho Chickenhawks
Homeland Police State
JFK RFK MLK Malcolm
Anthrax Intimidation
“Federal” Reserve
NAFTA Nation?
GGreenwald
I don’t doubt she is from a Democratic Party family.
So fucking what. The righties are shocked! Shocked, I tell you!
They oughta all about it know as noted above by hardrain77.
Fuck em all. With the filthy tactics including outright lies and scaremongering that they are employing, frankly the pro-reform people can do virtually whatever it takes, as far as I am concerned.
The GOP can shove their ’sensibilities’, such as they may or may not be, right up their collective patootie.
Ah, how an 11 year old can shit can kick the Republican Party! Just shows how ineffectual Republicans have become! Ike would be laughing his ass off….
These people are beyond belief. Attacking little children seems to be second nature to them. Why don’t they come up with some kind of logical response to what the President has to say about the cost of health care rising to $25K for a family of four over the next few years? Or 1,400 people losing their health insurance every day? Or Medicare’s Plan D, passed by the Bushies, which was not funded and caused huge financial problems? Or the fact that Medicare will go broke within a decade? Instead they’re attacking some kid. Way to go, Republikkkcan’ts.
Just like those nasty right wingers to pick on an 11-year old girl.
Oh, did I just fulfill a prophesy?
Next thing you know, that clever Obama person will trot out sick people and old people and poor people to argue for public health care. Boy, that guy sure plays dirty!
I knew the bastard right was not as smart as a “fifth” grader, but now we know 11 years olds can play chess with these trolls. Until they kick the table over and shoot you.
The health insurance anti-Obama “protesters” are the
usual bunch of CORPORATE-SPONSORED PROPAGANDISTS that create the most-important weapons of all–FEAR and CHAOS.
Corporations PERFECTED advertising years ago.
They KNOW how to use it.
It’s THEIR BOTTOM LINE vs Your Health.
And YOU lose!
Whatever happened to the “free speech” zones? Really, Obama, you can have free speech zones set up for the conservatives miles away from your events. It kept Bush from ever having to see any real people, those hadn’t drunk the baby bush kool aid.
My first free speech zone was implemented by a Democratic mayor while Bill Clinton looked down his nose at the people of Seattle from his perch on high, with a bunch of guys with sniper rifles at us being pepper sprayed, tear gassed, beaten and shot with riot control weapons, following us into our neighboorhoods, attacking our neighbors in our own back yards while bbq’ing, with tear gas. I got shot in the back of the head with steel coated rubber bullets myself. Let’s hear some more about your kool aid.
Jeff Ganon ok, open town halls bad. What’s that word. oh Hipocrisy
When an 11 year old girl can cut the entire Republican Party to its knees, including Limbaugh et al, you know the air is completely gone from their tires. The “Party of No” just became “Not even a Party”. Or, if even a party, its “the Party of Mean Signs”. Whipped by “Hello Kitty”. Now THAT’s ignominious. Limbaugh will have to barbecue something very small and very helpless to drum up some kind of sense of fear for their now squirming “anti-immigrant” milleu. Maybe he can have an orgiastic “earthworm eating” buzzfest, accentuating the wriggling helplessness of the earthworm, of course. The smell of the bloated elephant carcass is just getting horrendous, ain’t it? Oh yeah. Any minute the skin will pop and there will be maggots EVERYWHERE. Bush must be packing his bags in a complete frenzy. “Paraguay? I never even HEARD of Paraguay!”
OMG, the world has suddenly gone sane. I don’t know what to do. I know! I’ll try giggling. Ahhhhhh…. Much better than oxycontin!
The reich-wing is bereft of intelligence when they feel threatened by an 11 year old girl.
so now the racist prick repukes have sunk so low to pick on little girls?kind of typical of their fringe element bigfoot seeing stupidity.
the 101st keepbord cammandos stationed in their moms basement are out in full force, I see.
I think Frau Malkin is right. We should start holding town hall meetings for children. If the brown shirts burst in and start shouting at those, they’ll look even more boorish than they do already. Plus the kids will ask better questions since they talk amongst themselves more than adults do. During the campaign legions of kids pitched in, at least in my area. The kids are alright.
Thank you Michelle! And yes, America does need shields from your hate.
Why does Osama Bin Limbaugh hate little girls?
Does anyone know the names of some of the violence prone anarchist organizations, like the ones that shut down the world trade meetings in Seattle? When the Dumbocrats completely cave in to the corporations and finish snatching defeat from the jaws of victory for us on this one, I am giving up on Amerikan politics completely and will be looking for a political party that isn’t afraid of a little car bombing and asassination. Tillers murder and the murder of his predecessor is why the Dems are caving on this. They are scared to death of the gun toting jesus nutter bully boys. It’s about time to burn a few churches, with their congregation locked inside, and the hope for democracy is for the Dems to be more scared of their constituency than of the christ crispys. Hell they have majorities in house and Senate and have given away single payer, and the public option, while 75% of us support single payer. Farking Christ! what a whorehouse!
The vast majority of the violence was perpetrated by the police. The black-clad anarchists from Eugene were but around a dozen or so punk kids spray painting cars and breaking a few windows, their few actions were all that was needed to legitimize the brutality that the police put upon folks that week in the eyes of the lame media coverage. I saw far more windows broken by the police and for every car on the street that these kids would spraypaint, there were tenfold as many people following them around with cleaning solvents, removing the paint from cars that they rudely painted.
So it’s ok for Limbaugh to attack a little girl, but god help anyone who utters a word about Palin’s family she waves around like a tarnished trophy, or “Joe the Plumber” for that matter.
So it’s ok for the neo-cons to attack an 11 year old, but god help anyone who utters a word about Palin’s kids she waves around like a trophy.
Its official. The GOP is afraid of 11 year old girls! Its a conspiracy I tell you…A conspiracy! All 11 year old girls must be stopped now, and forced to pledge their allegiance to right wing nuttery. Failure to do so will result in ad hominem attacks by Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Michelle Malkin, Glen Beck, Michael Savage, etc. How dare little girls ask intelligent questions? Who do they think they are……rich white men??
This was standard Bush. He always stacked his Town Halls.
And the fussing and yelling at town halls are also because Repugs are stacking those.
The Repugs are running out of ideas. Just a bunch of rich people who when they don’t get their way keep a bunch of poor hillbilly’s with guns on the pay roll!
I watched the town hall (not on fox, though, , since they cut away after two questions and had a panel of pundits talking about rowdy town halls and how no one was revealing whats in the bil.)
I thought Obamas answer to the girls question was indeed long and didn’t address the question.
I think he should have taken advantage of the opportunity to show how childish some people are acting.
He should have said:
” You are right. Sometimes people lie or twist the truth. When kids hear stuff on TV or on the radio, they should assume the speaker has their own point of view and therefore might be slanting things in their own direction for their own purpose. It’s a lot like TV commercials for products. Even as a kid you know you know you should be skeptical and find out for yourself.
I recommend to everyone to read the bill. It’s written in plain English and even kids should be able to understand it.
If kids, or anyone for that matter, aren’t sure what some of the words mean, they should ask for explanation.”
Don’t know if anyone watched the town hall on Fox, I tried because I wanted to see what they did it.
First, while Obama was speaking, They shrunk his image to the left and as he was talking they put up words and bogus poll figures. They used words like Euthenasia and cited polls where only 3% of people thought their insurance was “poor.”
Later, after two questtions, they cut away completely and didn’t show the event. Instead, they had a panel of pundits saying things like “no one has revealed whats in the bill” and “these town halls are always rowdy (they showed shots of rowdy town halls.)”
I flipped back and forth between the event and Fox’s critique and it was eerie how their topics coincided almost to the minute with what was happening live.
I think Fox was let down by the fact that it wasn’t a rowdy town hall, so they filled in their own crap.
That should show anyone that Fox is an entertainment channel, not a news channel. Stating the obvious to most here, I know, but it’s a perfect example to illustrate Fox’s intentions.
All the stacked media ops, pre-set questions, friendly crowds, et. al. that the Shrub had, and these people rail about a kid asking a question? wow.. and in the face of their own lunatics screaming at town halls, sounding much less sane and mature than this 11 year old kid.
And speaking of using kids to sway opinion (and judgment, as the case might be).. remember back in 1991 when George H. W. Bush trotted a girl out in front of Congress to “testify” how she saw Saddam’s soldiers take babies out of incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital and put them on the floor and walk off with the incubators? Remember her crying as she recalled the incident? Incident NEVER HAPPENED, and she was the daughter of the Kuwaiti diplomat that was going to make lots of money by having the U.S. block Saddam from taking Kuwait’s oil. Hmm…. so, the first gulf war spurned on by lies told by a little girl, fronted by the right wing.. and they have the nerve to be pissy about a kid asking a question that helps bring TRUTH out?
These people really are that stupid, aren’t they. Sad.
The GOP,
Limbaugh,
Malkin,
Sun Myung Moon and the
Health Insurance Industry,
are all;
“Dumber Than a 5th Grader. ”
I love it!!
I’m not surprised the rightwing would tear into an 11 year old.
They’ve shown no class up to now… why should they change?
Attacking kids should be ‘no go’
That would be the decent to do… but don’t expect these fascist psycho’s to take a hint.
Wow, picking on an 11 year-old girl for asking a question, unlike Chimpy McFlightsuit’s fake town halls packed to the gills with white trash fawning all over him.
Well, it’s official - the dumbasses on the reich-wing each have had at least four or five bowls of retard flakes this morning.
The real surprise would be if an 11 year old girl were to ask Obama if the reason that a single payer health care plan is off the table is because the insurance and pharmaceutical companies contributed many millions of dollars to his presidential campaign.
Or how even said plan would cut costs. I mean medicare has done wonders at cutting the cost of providing care, haven’t it? Both medicare and social security are going to become even bigger burdens with the boomers. Now we want to expand it to everyone? Since when does government getting more involved increased competition, medicare hasn’t done that. It can undercut the insurance companies and over time put them out of business while operating at astronomical losses. That isn’t true competition, nor will it cut costs in the long run.
You know if we moved the incentives from the employer to the individual, maybe in some kind of conditional tax deduction, we would actually increase competition and lower costs. Right now they cannot choose different health insurance plans because it is the employer’s way or the highway, so the insurance companies have much less pressure to benefit the customer, since they can’t leave their plan, and inicidentially this also locks people into jobs they would otherwise move on from. Its funny, we have the individual, the employer, and the government, who has more interest in your life, so why don’t you want that person make the decisions?
“Right now they cannot choose different health insurance plans because it is the employer’s way or the highway, so the insurance companies have much less pressure to benefit the customer,”
were you born stupid, or did you hit your head?
The “business” is the “customer”, and companies change providers ALL THE TIME because the BUSINESS person is paying the bill, and they understand about trying to cut costs.
“locks people into jobs they would otherwise move on from. ”
know what else locks people into jobs they hate? 20% unemployment..
I take it you don’t have the slightest clue about “bulk purchasing” or “large group negotiating”.. that helps lower costs, which is why the Federal Government Insurance plan is so nice for them.. _bargaining power_.
“Since when does government getting more involved increased competition, medicare hasn’t done that. ”
Medicare doesn’t compete with anything, it covers those no one else wants to cover. Duh? Bringing that into a “competitive concept” discussion such as “more insurance plans out there” is simply ignorant and pointless.
Competition is what is created when you have MORE access to a specific industry, in this case insurance. If there is another “insurance company” out there doing it cheaper, the rest of the companies will have to “compete” to keep their customers, which means lowering costs to keep them.. right? So, in this case, the government getting involved is like a non-profit entering the market, which _always_ drives lower costs for everyone because there are those out there not needing profits like the others. If you don’t have the overhead of paying people dividends for doing nothing, you can charge less.. right? Get it?
Every time you open your mouth here, I see more and more blatant examples of how your brain just doesn’t work. Your critical thinking skills are crap, your ability to reason and pull PERTINENT facts into your opinions is crap, and it seems you, personally, are simply crap.
Have you ever lived in reality?
“The “business” is the “customer”, and companies change providers ALL THE TIME because the BUSINESS person is paying the bill, and they understand about trying to cut costs.”
For cost and primarily for cost, an individual would have more interest in cost and quality, granted they don’t want their employees dieing but fiting the needs of a given individual is not in their interest, mainly just bottom the bottom line. If an insurance company is screwing you or other people over you cannot just up and switch companies as an individual if you are tied to your employer’s plan. Do you understand fool?
“know what else locks people into jobs they hate? 20% unemployment..”
This would be a completely irrelevant point thrown out, but since you want to increase the tax burden right before we start to see the explosion of medicare and social security costs, that makes your whining nonsense relevant.
“I take it you don’t have the slightest clue about “bulk purchasing” or “large group negotiating”.. that helps lower costs, which is why the Federal Government Insurance plan is so nice for them.. _bargaining power_.”
Yeah I am going to trust the same people that threw arbitrary amounts of money at the banks to be stewards of cost cutting. This is the same bulk purchasing that saves us so much money on defense right? The same that has helped reduce the cost of college right? Ok got it. Do you understand supply and demand? You cannot just increase demand while supply stays the same and expect lower costs. There is no market forces there to reduce demand on unnecessary tests or to break the monopoly doctors have so you got to go to a doctor for a headache and other minor junk. Also government has always been a for profit business, its just that the people who provide the capital don’t evenly reap the profits. Big Pharma will get paid (didn’t Obama just cut a deal with them), doctors will get paid just like they are getting paid well with medicare, just like many have been leaching off of insurance companies. I am sure things are great in utopia land where our civil servants work so hard to reduce costs and provide effecient service. It’s also not like there are going to be even more overpaid and underworked beuracracies as a result of this bill, right?
“Competition is what is created when you have MORE access to a specific industry, in this case insurance. If there is another “insurance company” out there doing it cheaper, the rest of the companies will have to “compete” to keep their customers, which means lowering costs to keep them.. right? So, in this case, the government getting involved is like a non-profit entering the market, which _always_ drives lower costs for everyone because there are those out there not needing profits like the others. If you don’t have the overhead of paying people dividends for doing nothing, you can charge less.. right? Get it?”
Well except its a nonprofit that pays their workers ridiculous amounts of money with a very nice retirement and make it near impossible to get fired. Do you know how much people at other nonprofits get paid? Not to mention the fact that many rely on volunteers. Government couldn’t compete with the insurance companies unless they repeatedly operated at a loss, they could nowhere near provide the level of service that a regular nonprofit could for the same price. Comparing government to regular nonprofits is one of the stupidest things I ever heard. The cost structure are nowhere near the same. Government does not provide anything at all more efficiently than the private sector, though I would like to see you list at least one example? And you’re example of competition is the status quo plus the government, not exactly much of an improvement, and portability of a health plan isn’t increased. The ability for individuals to make a decision to buy or not to buy, stay in the current plan or go elsewhere is a market force. And the only way that the government would be able to compete is if they ran in the red, which is not competition at all, it’s the slow march to deficit enabled monopoly.
“Julia Hall may be the most hated 11-year-old among conservative pundits in America today.” - Sounds more like they felt she was being used as a prop than actually hating a little girl and I think this is just yet another misrepresentation by the media designed to divide and control the public and ensure the never ending battle between left and right, so go have a coke, or a fucking pepsi.
That being said, I think it’s kind of lame to print an article a kid might read that states that she’s ‘hated’ when in fact she’s not. This just seems like more shitty propaganda to me. When did the news become a fucking Jerry Springer episode about every little thing?
This is the right at its highest potential:
punk
ass
bitches
bullying
children
I hope with all my heart the conservative movement in America continues to hemorrhage from its self-inflcted wounds until there’s nothing left to do but pull the life support. It doesn’t get much sicker than this.
Wait — we’re talking about conservatives: of course it gets much worse than this.
mAnn Cunter saying Rahm Emmanuel’s brother is on her death list.
Glen BecKKK projecting his racism onto President Obama — same with boyboffer/methane producer, Rash Limbaugh — and crying tears of joy while showing pictures of Hitler and Nazi deathcamps.
Not to mention the inbred bigotry of the GOP and its officeholding hypochristians: Vitter, Palin, Sanford, et al.
What a sick and sorry lot of assholes repuglicans and conservatives are.
And levstrauss, did you misspell your screen name? Take your meds and try to make sense.
It would be pretty unusual for an 11 year old kid to have different views than her parents. That’s who they listen to all the time. So I don’t see why they want to make a bid deal about her parents being Democrats. It would be surprising to find her parents were conservatives. We should all take out kids to town hall meetings and encourage them to ask questions.
Leave it to repugs to attack a child who is the messenger. Why is it that they never understand what an Ad Hominem attack is?
They don’t have the balls to admit they’re lying so they have to resort to attacking the child. Even lower than low.
the wingnuts love attacking children
they did the same to a 13 year old peace activist just a few years ago
the repuke party is filled with perverts and child abusers
Sorry, she must have been a liberal plant - she spoke in complete sentences and didn’t shout nonsense at the top of her lungs.