Thursday 3^rd District Congressman Leonard Boswell held what was supposed to have been his first Town Hall Meeting on the much disputed Health Care Reform Bills bouncing around the halls of Congress. The meeting was held in the public library of the small rural community of Sigourney located in Keokuk County about 30 miles east of Oskaloosa. This city is situated near the extreme edge of the Congressman’s District causing some to question his motivation for holding his first health care event so far from the larger population centers of the District. Some have even speculated that the event was orchestrated to prevent the kind of dissent that we have witnessed across the country while allowing Boswell to claim that he held the meetings. If these were the true intentions of this meeting then Congressman Boswell has failed miserably.

In fact more than one hundred concerned citizen’s flocked to this small community hoping to get an opportunity to ask the Congressman a question or to simply make a statement regarding the proposals that Congress is contemplating. What many of these attendees were not expecting was to be turned away at the door because they were not aware of the need to RSVP Congressman Boswell’s office. Unfortunately for these people it was not publicized that they needed to call ahead to guarantee their a seat for the event. It was not publicized on the Congressman’s website that this was a requirement. In fact it appeared that the only people that were aware of this necessity were members of AFSCME and SEIU as they were the individuals being allowed in. It would not be an unreasonable assumption that Congressman Boswell was attempting to build a sympathetic crowd for his affirmation of a public option.

In fact despite the ongoing propaganda campaign launched by the Democrats in an effort to discredit the voices of opposition the only organized presence of any kind were the aforementioned unions. The only professionally manufactured signs were held by proponents of a public option, most notably the SEIU. Opponents of the plan did have signs, but they were all homemade, hand made signs carried by individuals, not groups.

If Congressman Boswell was attempting to stack the crowd in his favor, his attempt failed spectacularly. If there was just one occurrence of this lack of foresight I think that it would be forgivable. However when you add his condescending Knoxville and his offensive Chariton event there is really only one conclusion that an intelligent individual can come too. Leonard Boswell has become an incompetent old fool. He is past his prime and hurting his constituents more than helping them. The honorable thing for Congressman Boswell to do would be to step down effective immediately. And since I cannot envision his ego allowing him to do that the next best thing for the people of the 3^rd District to do is to vote him out of office in 2010.