It is hard to know just how disruptive the protests have been at various town hall meetings that congressmen and women are having around the country. Some of the video I’ve seen is edited and it isn’t clear whether a town hall meeting was allowed to go on or not.
The video of Texas Congressman Doggett’s town hall seems to be at the end as he is preparing to leave. The video could easily have been preceded by a productive town hall meeting.
Still, I suspect there have been some town halls that have never gotten off of the ground due to the disruptive protests. I think you can see more evidence in the video posted at TPMDC. I don’t know much about Rachel Maddow, and I believe she is guilty of being strongly biased to the liberal side of things, but I do think that some of the video she shows counts as protests that disrupt the town hall.
Is that a bad thing? It is not as evil as many commenters are making it out to be. When the congressman needs a police escort to get safely to his car, that may be over the line a bit. But from what I’ve seen, I’m betting that there have been many such protests in the history of this country from many different sides of the political spectrum.
The tactic of shouting down the other side in a forum designed for discussion is often used by those who have no good argument to make.