The Politico reports California senator Dianne Feinstein is trying to make it up to as many as 15,000 inaugural ticketholders who were blocked from entering the event — by sending them a photo of Barack Obama.
Thousands of now-angry people secured tickets to the historic inauguration of Barack Obama through the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies and stood in line for hours on a frigid D.C. morning — only to be told they wouldn’t be allowed to see the event.
So you spent thousands of dollars on airline tickets, a hotel and new clothes. You traveled thousands of miles to wake up in the early morning and wait in freezing temperatures. You’ve stood in line for hours holding a ticket from Congress itself allowing you to witness a historic event at the Capitol.
All so you can be hustled out like you’re homeless. But hey, Congress is at least mailing you a picture of Barack Obama.
And these people think they should control your access to health care? What does your surviving family get if you’re refused cancer treatment, as is often done in countries with socialized medicine? A signed photo of Tom Daschle?
"They (the ticketholders) were kept in the dark – deprived of information – as the hours passed and their hopes of seeing history in the making slipped away. As one of my constituents put it, ‘I waited more than 50 years for this moment, and now I’ve missed it,’" Maryland congressman and Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Chris Van Hollen told The Politico.
Van Hollen is "baffled by the breakdown, on such a broad scale, of the processing of people who followed the rules and came only to see, hear and be part of this remarkable moment in our nation’s history."
What’s baffling is that both Van Hollen and Feinstein still want that same government to control your access to health care. If Congress can’t even get its own guests into a public ceremony on their grounds, do you trust them to dictate when and how you can see your doctor?
