Friday, July 08, 2011
President Barak Obama’s first crack at an online town hall held exclusively through Twitter proved to be an opportune move for House Republicans who flooded the event with bated questions and negative remarks about the economy.
Led by House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, GOP lawmakers tweeted Obama again and again about job creation (or the lack of it) and his “failed” economy plans.
“With 9.1% unemployment & ‘shovel ready’ jobs a bust, will you admit the ‘stimulus’ was a mistake? http://bit.ly/oTK17f #askobama,” tweeted Boehner.
Republicans were clearly more prepared than Obama’s Democratic allies, commanding 77% of all tweets from Congress at the town hall.
The event was moderated by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who chose to focus the questions to Obama on the subjects of the economy, education and space exploration. That left critics of the war on drugs—who retweeted the question of legalizing marijuana more than 4,900 times—out of the discussion.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Obama's Twitter Town Hall on Jobs Crashed by House Republicans (by Jennifer Bendery, Huffington Post)
Obama Townhall Twitter Analysis (OhMyGov)
#Askobama Twitter Town Hall Ignores Flood of Marijuana Legalization Questions (by Eric Dolan, The Raw Story)
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