Michael Ryan Mischaracterizes the Summer of Conservative Temper Tantrums

Within the last few weeks Michael Ryan wrote an editorial that completely mischaracterized this past summer's rowdy town hall meetings. He actually wrote that "liberals went ballistic when older citizens peacefully expressed their concerns about health care reform plans." Everybody that follows the news knows that's not what happened. Mr. Ryan's comment is not even revisionist history--it's revisionist current events.

People were disrupting congressmen who were trying to explain the various health care reforms being considered. They were hardly peaceful protests, and the admitted goal of the insurance company lobbyists financing and organizing these protests was to "shout down intelligent debate."

In a separate editorial Mr. Ryan suggested using these noisy, brainless tactics to protest House Resolution 2190, which would force chemical companies to reduce mercury contamination of our waters, because it might make Olin Corporation (a local factory that poisons the Savannah River) to lay off a few workers, if they can't comply in time. So in one column Mr. Ryan was egging on ballistic behavior among conservatives that in another column he falsely claimed liberals were engaging in.

Demonstrating this kind of chutzpah shows that Mr. Ryan is just, to put it bluntly, a stupid jerk.