Big Sky Country

Obama hit Belgrade, Montana this afternoon and found more terribly polite people to have a town hall meeting with.

Obama decried the media’s focus on contentious town halls and said the scenes that have been airing on cable TV are not representative of the many calm meetings being held across the country. “TV loves a ruckus,” Obama said.

In that case, Obama’s event certainly wasn't made for TV. The president’s two town halls this week — first in Portsmouth, N.H., and Friday in Belgrade, began and ended respectfully, with nary a raised voice.

And just like in Portsmouth, Obama had to ask for a critic to stand up and ask him a question. In Belgrade, it was a man who sells individual health insurance. “Why is that you’ve changed your strategy from talking about health care reform to health insurance reform and vilify the health insurance companies?”

"My intent is not to vilify insurance companies. If my intent was to vilify them, we'd be saying private insurance has no place in the health care market," Obama said, but added, that he wants to make sure "certain practices that are very tough on people — those practices change."

Well, could have been worse. We'll see how it goes tomorrow. He did give a strong speech in his opening remarks.

[UPDATE 6:00 PM] Bob Cesca has more, including the transcript.

A woman from Texas was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer, was scheduled for a double mastectomy. Three days before surgery, the insurance -- the insurance company canceled the policy, in part because she forgot to declare a case of acne. True story. By the time she had her insurance reinstated, the cancer had more than doubled in size.

And this is personal for me. I'll never forget my own mother as she fought cancer in her final months, having to worry about whether the insurance company would refuse to pay for her treatment. The insurance company was arguing that she should have known that she had cancer when she took her new job, even though it hadn't been diagnosed yet. If it could happen to her, it could happen to any one of us.

It's wrong. And when we pass health insurance reform, we're going to put a stop to it once and for all.

Of course, Politico's Carol Lee up there was just terribly disappointed that nobody called the President a fascist. What's the point of watching people debate health care and the President putting forward his arguments? That's SOOOOOOOOOOO BORING to our Villagers, you know.

Please, won't somebody think about our bored, listless Villagers tomorrow when the President's in Colorado? Won't somebody give the Village the excuse to reduce the President's excellent points down to "Somebody in America doesn't like Obama"?