Stumbling onto Astroturf

Sometimes I follow the news and sometimes the news follows me. On a perfectly innocent trip to our nation’s capital to take in the sights (and the ballgames) what should I wander into but this affair, dubbed the “Scrubs Delivery Rally”:

The idea was to send thousands of medical smocks from various parts of the country to show support for Obamacare. Each of them was supposed to tell its own story.

We will not deduct for spelling or grammar, honestly I didn’t notice how this particular message was written until I came home and went through the pictures for the day.

Given its location there were some high-powered people slated to speak.

Among those slated to address the massive throngs were Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis and Senator “Dingy” Harry Reid. I thought I spied Charlie Rangel in the crowd but I wasn’t sure and really wasn’t looking to ask. Anyway, whether it was good luck or bad I don’t know, but since I purely stumbled onto the aftermath I didn’t hear what they said nor did I talk to them. I’m not sure I would have gotten along with this crowd anyway.

What I did find was a couple of flyers being passed out at the event. One shilled for a company called Nova Uniforms, who supported the rally and on the flyer quoted a passage from seiu.org:

“…health care reform is about much more than just politics: I’ts about peoples lives.” Please tell me that they only dress the health care professionals and don’t work as them.

The other described the event sponsor, an outfit called “Partnership for Quality Care.” It describes itself as:

The Partnership for Quality Care is a national labor-management coalition committed to ensuring quality, affordable healthcare for everyone in America. It includes public, private, religious, teaching, and non-profit hospitals nationwide and integrated health systems and the nation’s largest healthcare union, SEIU, with more than one million nurses, doctors, and healthcare workers. Our members care for more than 60 million patients annually.

The flyer was preprinted but had additional hand-lettering in red ink telling people the rally was today and that Harry Reid and Hilda Solis would be speaking (how else do you think I would have known that if I wasn’t there?) It also stated that “buses leave at 10:30 a.m.” – I’m guessing from 1199SEIU since that’s what the woman’s shirt above read. They were the ones working on this rally.

Yet, even with this small turnout, the media was fawning all over it. I saw a CNN camera rolling and here’s a Univision reporter wrapping up her interview with this woman.

I did not pay attention to what the interviewers were discussing and probably wouldn’t have known anyway since I’m monolingual but it’s noteworthy that a Spanish-language network covered the event, particularly with the entire “you lie” controversy centering on whether illegal aliens would be covered in the Obamacare bill. Had I shown up earlier I may have pulled a Wilson of my own, bet I couldn’t have helped myself.

The point is that this tiny rally was necessary to provide a so-called show of support for Obamacare and counter the 1 million-plus who showed up a week and a half ago on the other side of that very building.

Perhaps the dichotomy in rally size and location is a perfect metaphor for the issue we’re all facing.