Video: ObamaCare fans take Astroturfing to a new level; Mayer an OFA organizer
posted at 10:11 am on August 13, 2009 by Ed Morrissey
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Patterico and Lone Star Times capture yet another banner moment from a town-hall forum hosted by Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) . In this clip, Roxana Mayer introduces herself as a doctor (a general practitioner for four years) in order to support ObamaCare and Jackson-Lee in a fairly hostile crowd. For her efforts, she gets a big hug from the Congresswoman, an image which the Houston Chronicle featured prominently on their website coverage of the event.
But was Mayer really a doctor?
Not only was Mayernot a doctor, Roxana Mayer was an Obama delegate, as Patterico discovered with some digging. What’s more, the Houston Chronicle apparently knew this and failed to include it in its glowing coverage of Mayer’s appearance. The reporter, Cindy Horswell, has admitted that she knew Mayer was an Obama delegate and that Mayer didn’t live in Jackson-Lee’s district when she wrote the Chronicle story. After getting exposed, the Chronicle quietly changed the caption on the photo without issuing a correction, removing the reference to Mayer being a doctor.
Be sure to read all of the posts for a great rundown of an excellent catch by Patterico and Lone Star Times. At the moment, no one has any evidence that Jackson-Lee, the White House, or Organizing for America had anything to do with getting this imposter the microphone to ask a sympathetic question and make sympathetic declarations at the town-hall forum. However, the odds of that happening as a coincidence with an Obama delegate seem a little long.
Update: Those odds just got a little longer. Guess who was a lead organizer for OfA back in March 2008? Thanks to Allahpundit for tipping me to this!
Update II: Right Wing Sparkle calls OfA “shameless.”
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BUSTED!!
cmsinaz on August 13, 2009 at 10:14 AM
2+2=5
blatantblue on August 13, 2009 at 10:14 AM
ohhhh snap.
Mayer ain’t no docta, Jackson ain’t no congressperson, and Obama ain’t no…….
well, you finish it.
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:14 AM
Shelia-Jackson lee cannot take your call at this time.
Shelia-Jackson Lee is busy commerating Michael Jackson
ERRR
ERRR
ERRRRRRRRRRRRRR
SavedOrCreated3MillionMarxists on August 13, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Not astroturf.
BadgerHawk on August 13, 2009 at 10:15 AM
Thank you for putting this in the blog. Good job by Patterico!! I hope it will get more attention now. This makes me want to spit nails.
Cindy Munford on August 13, 2009 at 10:15 AM
4 out of 5 people who play doctors at town hall meetings support lobbyistcare.
jhffmn on August 13, 2009 at 10:15 AM
plants, plants everywhere
cmsinaz on August 13, 2009 at 10:16 AM
It’s like a circus.
Same stench too.
fogw on August 13, 2009 at 10:16 AM
I eagerly await the “Bush lied so we can too” defense from the left.
In, three, two, one….
Sean Bannion on August 13, 2009 at 10:16 AM
money–! nice work
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:16 AM
Next time the Chronicle calls me asking if I wanna buy a subscription, I’ll cite this as the reason they can go kiss off.
Doughboy on August 13, 2009 at 10:16 AM
Hey Sheila! Most humans are smarter than you! Your super-dooper trick fooled you and Roxana. Ignoramus!
daesleeper on August 13, 2009 at 10:16 AM
When will all the American people stand up and demand the TRUTH. Maybe 2010?
Christian Conservative on August 13, 2009 at 10:16 AM
It’s a good thing nobody at the town hall had a medical crisis, and had to call on any of the “doctors” in attendance to administer emergency care.
ChrisB on August 13, 2009 at 10:17 AM
I hope this Mayer character gets tthe “Joe the Plumber” treatment.
redzap on August 13, 2009 at 10:17 AM
excellent
:-)
cmsinaz on August 13, 2009 at 10:18 AM
it’s all theater.
The GOP should give out academy awards for all the acting going on… Someone PLEASE run with this concept and make a nifty viral video stat!
gatorboy on August 13, 2009 at 10:18 AM
Well at least she’s not the 12 yr old daughter of an Obama supporter…..”randomly chosen”, boy, girl, boy, girl. They treat adults like children, and children like adults. Bizarro Party.
Ozprey on August 13, 2009 at 10:18 AM
Wow. We’re finding these potted Obama plants at the rate of one per day per event, it seems.
Genuine, grassroots Democrat activism.
Good Lt on August 13, 2009 at 10:19 AM
She must be a veterinarian.
Because why else would she have her head up a donkey’s ass?
NoDonkey on August 13, 2009 at 10:19 AM
they are really grasping at straws here folks. It is so revealed that this plan is so wacked out for obamapeeps to get out there and do this. Just like sheep off to slaughter, this one absolutely takes the cake.
this just calls for some video
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:19 AM
Here’s a little photoshop for Patterico that might be slightly more accurate than the photo that ran in the Houston Chronicle.
Gilda on August 13, 2009 at 10:20 AM
the funny thing is that eventually even the
Main StreamDrive By Media is going to have to call out Obama and the Dems to retain what little shred of credibility they have left.search4truth on August 13, 2009 at 10:20 AM
gettin’ it done for da big man.
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:20 AM
Okay, that made me laugh. Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode when George said he was a marine biologist during the whale emergency.
And kudos to Detective Patterico. Great story.
sherry on August 13, 2009 at 10:20 AM
Sheila Jackson-Lee is a walking mistake.
Heard a great story about her on Morning Joe. NASA Houston Command is in her district and she was attending some meeting with NASA administrators where the subject was Mars and future Martian exploration missions. This moron then apparently asked the administrators if any future mission could go recover the flag our astronauts left there.
elduende on August 13, 2009 at 10:20 AM
General practitioners are a dying breed?
misslizzi on August 13, 2009 at 10:20 AM
I’m just waiting for the lefty trolls to defend this.
rbj on August 13, 2009 at 10:20 AM
Hell, August ain’t even half up yet. By the time this month is up, the only voters Obama has left are going to have a parody up and running on them at HotAir….
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:21 AM
Since at least January 1, 1978, it has been a violation of Texas laws concerning the practice of medicine for a person: (a) to diagnose, treat, or offer to treat any disease or disorder when that person is not licensed to practice medicine in Texas; (b) for an unlicensed person to impersonate a licensed practitioner; and (c) for a licensed physician to permit another unlicensed person to use his license or certificate to actually practice medicine. I.G. Ex. 66, 7/ 11 at 141-143; I.G. Ex. 99.
BohicaTwentyTwo on August 13, 2009 at 10:21 AM
Calling them ‘plants’ is too kind… they’re more like weeds.
mjbrooks3 on August 13, 2009 at 10:21 AM
Oh man, you all have GOT to read today’s front-page story in the Philadelphia Inquirer about Joe Sestak’s townhall yesterday, which was successfully astroturfed by the Obamabots. I guess they are learning from their mistakes, but not only is it probably too late, but this one helps Joe Sestak at the expense of Arlen Specter, who has completely botched his townhalls across the state. I don’t think this is what the White House political folks really want. So they have shot themselves in the foot again. LMAO.
Sestak health care meeting a spoonful of sugar
rockmom on August 13, 2009 at 10:22 AM
No, that is reserved for enemies of Hope and Change – the ideologically impure disloyal peons who dare to question Sheikh Barrack’s masterplan for a socialist state.
Anders on August 13, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Roxana Mayer: “I am not a real doctor – but I did stay at a Holiday Inn last night”.
ChrisB on August 13, 2009 at 10:22 AM
I’m not a doctor, I just play one
on tvat town hallsCMonster on August 13, 2009 at 10:22 AM
gets better she is actually justifying her lying….
of course I think her having to lie speaks volumes about the inability of Obama’s gardeners(like Nixon’s plumbers)to find a single doc who’d get up there…
sven10077 on August 13, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Yeah well I hear Doctor Zero isn’t really a doctor, either.
/liberal343
LibTired on August 13, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Unbelievable. Actually maybe not. Are they really this bad?
rob verdi on August 13, 2009 at 10:22 AM
Now we know what funemployment looks like….
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Newspeak, Oceania awaits us all.
tarpon on August 13, 2009 at 10:23 AM
Last night, Greta said she “liked” Sheila Jackson Lee and wanted to have her on the show tomorrow (which is tonight) to defend the cellphone incident from the meeting. I look forward to Greta asking about Mayer.
What is left to like about Jackson now?
balkanmom2 on August 13, 2009 at 10:23 AM
When it becomes obvious that a press entity is in the bag for this president, and will not properly correct erroneous information that they have blared to the community/world, I think we need to hold them accountable and use them against them.
Maybe go to their offices, block their parking lots, doorways, etc., demand a proper correction, and when they inevitably tell us the police have been called, call other local news agencies and let them know the cops are on their way to quell a disturbance at one of their competitors’ offices….
Patrick S on August 13, 2009 at 10:24 AM
Shameless.
Amazing that so many are tsk-tsking the “rudeness” of townhallers when their questions about the health care reform bill is answered by talking points instead of true answers by congressman who have not read the bill, and when they are subject to lies, deceit, and manipulation by congressmen, such as in this example.
DarkKnight3565 on August 13, 2009 at 10:24 AM
She, um, like, um, is, um, like, speaks, um, like, um, a real doctor.
Yeah, well I am. And I play one in a classroom, too. ;)
Dr.Cwac.Cwac on August 13, 2009 at 10:24 AM
Oh no, Lee had no clue this woman was going to be in the audience, just as she had no say in having the impostor sit right up front to be conveniently situated for the attending media cameras.
*eyes rolling so fast they fell out of my head and bobbled across the desk*
Bishop on August 13, 2009 at 10:25 AM
Now, Sheila’s not totally useless. She sure knows how to use a cellphone.
kingsjester on August 13, 2009 at 10:25 AM
What is the difference between this invasion of privacy and Joe the Plumbers? We are noq investigating 11 year old girls who ask questions in Townhalls. Grow up America.
Afrolib on August 13, 2009 at 10:26 AM
I like your take on this. They are desperately grabbing for some credibility with this losing argument.
sherry on August 13, 2009 at 10:26 AM
Amazing how this (lying) non-doctor, Obama delegate, grad student attending the school Jackson-Lee’s husband is an associate Dean asks a question which just happens to relate to a section of the health care bill on which Jackson-Lee is working on.
What are the odds?
parke on August 13, 2009 at 10:26 AM
errrrrrr – here we have two fat overweight wimmen telling us that our country is deficient in preventive care medicine. Does it get any crazier than this?
iam7545 on August 13, 2009 at 10:26 AM
hmmm. If the Black Pantha’s can get off for wielding nightsticks outside a polling place, then Reverend Doctor Bishop Delegate Sister Roxana Mayer can surely get off for this little miscalibration of words. She couldn’t have acted stupidly here.
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:26 AM
Ain’t no straws to grab.
blatantblue on August 13, 2009 at 10:27 AM
There was no investigation of the child, simply exposure of the truth. Big difference.
sherry on August 13, 2009 at 10:27 AM
Lying/Impersonating a doctor/police officer/soldier/president is okay if you are trying to advance a radical left-wing socialist agenda.
-Liberal343
Shock the Monkey on August 13, 2009 at 10:28 AM
She’s just trying to get at the ends… the hell with the means.
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:28 AM
I just finished reading this story linked from one of the HTPS organizers on FB.
Houston has a serious problem. Will they wake up to the truth?
madmonkphotog on August 13, 2009 at 10:28 AM
whats worse
impersonating a doctor
or being bush and impersonating a leader
/g0tmylifebanned
blatantblue on August 13, 2009 at 10:29 AM
What?
LibTired on August 13, 2009 at 10:29 AM
Logical arguments? I don’t need no stinking logical arguments.
david kumbera on August 13, 2009 at 10:29 AM
Yeah, because Palin’s children were not raked across the coals. /s
People simply did a little research about the mother and found out it was all a fraud. People aren’t even talking about the child, they are talking about how ridiculous the “grown-ups” are for using a child to further their agenda.
You sir, are an idiot.
MobileVideoEngineer on August 13, 2009 at 10:29 AM
The other troubling thing about this is the complicity of the local media. I was so sure that local media would stand up for their neighbors and be less in the tank of the Washington/New York media. I am too old to be this naive so let’s refer to it as “hopeful” and now truly disappointed.
Cindy Munford on August 13, 2009 at 10:29 AM
Never underestimate Mr. Emmanuel, he can manufacture them in his sleep.
sherry on August 13, 2009 at 10:29 AM
Afrolib on August 13, 2009 at 10:26 AM
Libeal343/money2/nice343, are you doing the dual personality thing again?
kingsjester on August 13, 2009 at 10:30 AM
You’d think someone would call her on her cell phone during the meeting to inform her of these things.
misslizzi on August 13, 2009 at 10:31 AM
go ahead libs, defend this.
Where’s Imus? I’m sure he has something to say about this.
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:31 AM
I say, good luck.
It’s easier to manufacture something that is intangible, i.e. a foreign adversary or global problem (AGWarming).
It isn’t very easy to manufacture something that is directly tangible to voters. By this, I mean that since many Americans are happy or halfway happy with their insurance, no amount of manufacturing of supposed crisis will do the trick.
blatantblue on August 13, 2009 at 10:31 AM
it’s like they’re not even trying anymore. at least TRY to not look staged.
patriette on August 13, 2009 at 10:31 AM
The Chronicle cronies hang out in front of the HEB store in Pearland. If they ask me if I want the paper, I’ll get on my cell, talk a bit, then rip them a new one.
madmonkphotog on August 13, 2009 at 10:31 AM
This poor excuse for a congress woman is nothing more than a Quanal X or Jessie Jackson wanna be. She along with Gene Green are embarrassments to this part of the country.
HoustonRight on August 13, 2009 at 10:32 AM
This falls under the old “If your mother says she loves you, check it out” coda for newspapers that the Houston Chronicle failed to live by. I didn’t hear of them running any sort of correction today, they simply rewrote the photo caption for posting on their website last night.
They really need to both make a formal correction instead of just flushing the original caption down the memory hole, and something like this at the very least would lend itself to a story on Astroturfing over the health care debate (and if they wanted to, they could do both sides of the battle, even though most of the turf exposed so far has been on the pro-Obamacare side).
jon1979 on August 13, 2009 at 10:32 AM
the phone calll went like this.
“Call on the PYT in da front row on da right, let her do her thang, then we all be goin’ out fo lunch right afder…cool?”
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:32 AM
There is a campaign commercial in there somewhere
Theworldisnotenough on August 13, 2009 at 10:34 AM
The more of these who are caught and called out, the better.
Mr. Joe on August 13, 2009 at 10:34 AM
Q; How does a reporter keep their job after knowingly falsifying a story?
A: If said reporter falsifies the story with a hectic leftist spin supporting big government and reduced liberty.
Hear that noise, it’s our founding fathers spinning in their graves
jukin on August 13, 2009 at 10:34 AM
George W. Bush wasn’t a doctor, either. So there.
Daggett on August 13, 2009 at 10:35 AM
the times are ripe for investigative journalists.. there is a watergate and a half out there just ripe for the picking.
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:35 AM
Actually the hypocricy of the left is what was exposed and investigated not the little girl. Her mother was exposed and her use of her daughter as a prop was pointed out. No one advocated doing anything untowards to this little girl they just pointed out the creepiness of the left and her mother.
thomasaur on August 13, 2009 at 10:35 AM
We live in friggin’ Oz.
Ignore the man behind the curtain.
Yakko77 on August 13, 2009 at 10:36 AM
hate to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t matter what venue the journos are working, I’m sure they all came from the same lib journo schools
cmsinaz on August 13, 2009 at 10:36 AM
Sure, all they had to do was go out to the back lot where the landings were staged and collect the props. I’m hoping they bring out a lunar rover — it’d be a great protoype for the next Gubmint Motors e-car.
ya2daup on August 13, 2009 at 10:36 AM
She tried to tell Axelrod and Rahm that it wouldn’t work.
This might hurt Obamas chage to get a Grammy for his TV performances.
bluegrass on August 13, 2009 at 10:36 AM
Staged events and lying are the only ways Obama can try to sell his health care aberration. Although it may be impossible for the shallow serial minds of Obama’s parasitic supporters, a thorough analysis of the proposed legislation will convince any thinking person that this frightening health care legislation will provide only poor rationed care that eliminates choices and prepares one to die early for the good of the state. This frightening socialist manifesto is the anthesis of everything this country stands for and it should be rejected by all Americans.
rplat on August 13, 2009 at 10:36 AM
How could they not know someone would figure this out?
I mean, c’mon. Even my google-fu is that strong.
Bob's Kid on August 13, 2009 at 10:37 AM
I agree, it’s rooted in the emotional stage now. I’m just saying that man has more tricks up his tutu than one can ever imagiine.
sherry on August 13, 2009 at 10:37 AM
I tell you what… somebody–pajamas TV or newsbusters or fox network should be cranking out the comedy videos on this crap like 24/7. It would be such a hoot and like comedy gold yo!
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:37 AM
Hey Ed, she does belong to Organzing for America, I found it here.
TendStl on August 13, 2009 at 10:37 AM
hell, I’d bet my whole set o’ bling that just the last two days events are enough comedy for the rest of the month of August…
ted c on August 13, 2009 at 10:38 AM
I guess so, I was just hoping that people couldn’t live in a community and have daily interaction with the people and then allow a blantant lie and fraud be played out without mentioning it. Very disappointing.
Cindy Munford on August 13, 2009 at 10:38 AM
What is the difference between this invasion of privacy and Joe the Plumbers? We are noq investigating 11 year old girls who ask questions in Townhalls. Grow up America.
Afrolib on August 13, 2009 at 10:26 AM
tessa on August 13, 2009 at 10:38 AM
Fake but accurate?
Nah….just plain fake…but the folks loved it….
Sheeple.
coldwarrior on August 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM
LOL :-)
AsianGirlInTights on August 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM
These are the kinds of doctors that will be on Obama Death Panels
faraway on August 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM
These people are not even embarassed when they get caught. They just laugh it off and move on.
Mord on August 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM
I am certain that there will be encores.
ICBM on August 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM
okay
im going to try posting again
he’s a one trick prickly d**k
lie lie lie
blatantblue on August 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM
It’s Tool Time!
And Jackson-Lee is truly a tool!
Just hope she enjoyed her stay in Congress………..because she is not going to be there much longer, courtesy of her very very very peeved off constituents.
pilamaye on August 13, 2009 at 10:39 AM
I’m not a doctor, but I play one at townhall meetings…
Sagebrush Rebel on August 13, 2009 at 10:40 AM
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