Foxx, FEMA, and Filtering

Perhaps using FEMA as a role model, U.S. Representative Virginia Foxx recently held a "telephone town hall meeting" to chat with her constituents. You may recall that FEMA recently held a "news conference"--but the "reporters" asking the questions at the FEMA presser turned out to be FEMA staffers only, asking softball questions designed to make FEMA look good. Actual reporters could call in on the phone to "listen only"--the real reporters were not allowed to ask questions of FEMA.

Foxx's telephone town hall was billed as an opportunity for constituents to “participate in her candid conversation on the important issues facing Congress.” Curiously (and very much like the recent FEMA "news conference"), only one caller to the Foxx event asked a tough question--the rest of the callers were highly complimentary of Foxx's record.

How very FEMA-like.

Here are some highlights from the High Country Press coverage of the Foxx/FEMA event:

Dick Sloop of Wilkes County said, “I definitely feel that I was filtered. I dialed into the town hall and listened for a half hour. I got tired of the softball questions and the feel-good commentary, so I dialed *3 [the procedure for joining the queue] and 15 minutes later I was asked for my name, county of record and the content of my question.”

Sloop said he wanted to ask Foxx, in light of her Christian values, if she considers water boarding torture.

“I held for about 30 minutes and then Foxx said, ‘Let’s go to Dick Sloop in Wilkes.’ I’m the only person she identified by my full name and then my phone went dead and she said, ‘Let’s go to Walt in Sparta.’ I wanted my question answered in public, and I’m reasonably sure I was filtered.”