Welcome to TBO.com. Skip directly to: our Keyword Search, Section Navigation, Content.

TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online

About This Blog:

The Jax Files is an interactive, quick-hitting blog devoted to any and all things Pasco, whether whole-heartedly, tangentially or merely psychologically.

Tom Jackson:

Tom Jackson is in a 12-step program for recovering sports writers; as part of his rehabilitation, he writes a column centered on the people, politics, passions and peculiarities of Pasco County. Email

Pasco County Links:

Most Recent Entries

Monthly Archives

The Jax Files: With Tom Jackson in Pasco

Pasco County News | Breaking News

Former Speaker’s wearisome playlist

Posted May 16, 2011 by Tom Jackson

Updated May 16, 2011 at 12:56 AM

It is hard to believe anybody – outside the diehard left – is buying this.

Then again, it is posted under a nom de web that reveals the author’s delusions. Nancy Pelosi officially surrendered the gavel (after a painfully long ode to herself) four months ago, but she’s still laying claim to it. In the interest of remaining true to the theme conjured by the former Speaker’s ghost-bloggers—time for GOP House freshmen to “face the music” over “your vote to end Medicare as we know it®,” we suggest Neil Sedaka’s golden oldie: “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.”

Nonetheless, what GOP congress members have reported – blowback over the GOP-passed House budget during recess town-hall meetings was orchestrated by liberal front groups (MoveOn.org, Progress for America) – I witnessed at Rep. Rich Nugent’s constituent debriefing in Dade City last month.

The solitary instigator sat impassively in the last row of the city hall board room through Nugent’s PowerPoint presentation of the Paul Ryan budget plan and the first several questions from the audience of about two dozen. When he did leap in, he did so not merely with both feet, but with misrepresentations blazing.

Why did he favor Medicare vouchers? Why did he want so put seniors in hock? Why was he in favor of privatizing Social Security? And so on. Nugent gamely parried, correcting the premise of his several questions.

Then, when he suggested the Senate was a better place for a filibuster and it was time to give others with hands raised a chance, the unidentified operative dashed from the room and out to the parking lot. He vanished before the lone member of the media in attendance—*blush*—could catch up and ask him to expand on his concerns.

Instructively, no one else picked up where the apparent operative left off. Follow-up questions about vouchers, about gouging seniors, about wrecking Social Security: zero.

Plainly, one town hall meeting does not disprove a trend. But the edgy manner of the questioning followed by the quick exit is suggestive of a coordinated strategy. Was he even a resident of District 5?

Not that residency itself is a disqualifier; these are, after all, national issues. But learning the presumed plant’s home base would have helped complete the picture of the degree to which there’s homegrown unrest in Nugent’s district.

The failure of legitimate constituents who stayed through to the end to fan the plant’s fires spoke volumes. It suggests District 5 retirees and others nearing retirement are no longer easily frightened by liberal demagoguery – an extremely encouraging sign.

Indeed, they appear to grasp they are far less likely to suffer lifestyle or economic disruptions under the Ryan plan than under any cynical Democratic proposal that, against all actuarial evidence, attempts to maintain “Medicare as we know it.” In fact, the program is hurtling toward bankruptcy (2024), five years earlier than previously projected; it will be altered, or baby boomers rolling into retirement will experience a legitimate Mediscare.

The unsupportable talking points manufactured by the left notwithstanding, the Dade City audience for Nugent’s town hall seemed to understand the crisis at hand. As for the operative who beat his hasty retreat, his moment in the spotlight recalled Nancy and Frank Sinatra’s 1967 No. 1 hit single:

“Something Stupid.”