We had a chance to visit with new Congressman Pat Meehan last night. He was our guest for this week’s “Live From the Newsroom” Internet live-stream broadcast.
If you missed it, you can check it out here.
One of the best things about this format is that it allows us to bring important issues – and the people affecting them – right into your living room
The other great thing about the Internet, of course, is the fact that it is interactive. We’re not the only ones with the ability to ask questions. We can invite our audience and viewers to take part in the discussion as well.
That’s what one viewer did last night. She apparently was not impressed with the questions Gil Spencer and I were putting to the congressman. After asking him about adjusting to life in Washington, and his interesting habit of sometimes sleeping in his office, I also asked him about his fight to keep the V-22 Osprey, the pride of Boeing in Ridley, off the chopping block, as well as the battle against a runway expansion plan at Philadelphia International Airport.
Those weren’t the issues this viewer wanted the congressman to address.
She even went so far as to ask if we were being paid by the congressman to ask such easy questions.
I had every intention of getting to the issue she was clearly interested in, just not right away.
This person wanted Meehan grilled over two incidents that have been tied to his campaign, one involving a campaign volunteer charged by the state attorney general with fraud for bogus signatures on Meehan’s nominating petitions, and a more recent incident in which an assistant U.S. attorney has been criticized for fundraisers held for both Meehan and former Sen. Arlen Specter.
Meehan answered both, calmly and rationally. He pointed out that his campaign actually blew the whistle on itself in the matter involving bad petition signatures gathered by longtime GOP loyalist Paul Summers. Meehan believes that Summers was acting alone. Of course the “chatter”
also wanted him to address the belief that the investigation and charges against Summers were deliberately delayed until after the election.
A lot of people thought the same thing, in fact they thought this case was buried and was never going to be heard from again. Not so. Summers is currently facing charges.
As for the fundraisers by Assistant U.S. Attorney Laurie Magid, I got the feeling that Meehan genuinely feels bad about the situation she’s now in. He indicated she actually sought out a legal opinion as to what she could do. She was named interim U.S. Attorney when he left the office. She’s now an assistant. Clearly, somewhere along the way the advice she got let her down. If the findings in the report are to be believed, she was pretty clearly over the line and now likely will face some kind of discipline.
I mentioned the issue of the airport runway expansion. Make sure you tune in next week. We’ll have some Tinicum residents on the show who are vowing to fight the plan.
“Live From the Newsroom,” every Wednesday night at 7. Don’t miss it.
Even if you don’t agree with the questions we’re asking. You can always suggest some questions of your own.
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