Special to Big Government from Helen Rittelmeyer, The Daily Caller:
Capitol Police arrested ten people on the second floor of the Cannon House Office Building at a sit-in this afternoon. The demonstrators had crowded into the office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi with a print-out of the health care bill, intending to tear up the bill in protest.
“It was a mess. There was paper all over the hallway,” said Jeanette Beam, who traveled from Georgia to join the protest. “They took a little old lady away in plastic handcuffs.”
The arrests, which happened a little before three o’clock, prompted plenty of chatter but little surprise. Earlier in the day, an organizer with a megaphone had explained the plan for the sit-in. “The police know we’re coming,” he announced. “No one has to get arrested if they don’t want to.”
The protesters were part of a crowd of 10,000 that gathered on Capitol Hill to protest the Democratic health care bill. The “emergency house call” was initiated by Rep. Michele Bachmann and organized by Americans for Prosperity.
Bachmann greeted the crowd from the Capitol steps: “You came. You came to your House.” When her remarks were interrupted by a chant of “Kill the bill,” Bachmann joked, “Oh, don’t hold back. Tell them how you really feel!” She continued, “Kill the bill – that’s exactly what you’re going to tell them.”
The lady from Minnesota was joined by several other Republican congressmen, including House Minority Whip Eric Cantor. Also on hand were celebrities like John Voight, Mark Levin, and John Ratzenberger, famous for playing Cliff Clavin on “Cheers.”
“We have to remember that these people are not the philosophical descendants of JFK and Tip O’Neill,” said Ratzenberger. “They’re the philosophical descendants of Abbie Hoffman, Saul Alinsky, and Wavy Gravy.”
“They’re Woodstock Democrats.”
The presser’s one sour note came when Rep. Todd Akin led the crowd in the Pledge of Allegiance – and then flubbed the words. The word he skipped was “indivisible.” The crowd kept going through this Freudian slip, and Akin caught up to them in time for “liberty and justice for all.”
After the press conference ended at one-thirty, the crowd walked across the street to the House office buildings in order to confront their representatives in person. Lines ran along Independence Avenue for entire blocks as hundreds lined up to go through security.
The lines moved slowly, but most of the protesters had made it inside by four o’clock.
Queued constituents chatted about how far they had traveled. “They chartered buses for us,” said one who had traveled to Washington from Ohio. “They planned to have just one bus coming from Columbus, but yesterday they had to add two more.”
Others cracked jokes about Pelosi: “I wonder if the public option will pay for her botox.”
One man, who had lost track of his group, tried to explain his location over a cell phone. “Can you see me? I’m wearing the Gadsden flag as a cape.” His description would have been specific enough in most crowds, but, at yesterday’s rally, at least a dozen other protesters were wearing the same thing.
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