Rep. Sheila Jackson Puts Town Hall Questioner on Hold to Talk on Phone

All kinds of bad behavior has been reported from health care town halls across the country, but it's usually perpetrated by protesters, not politicians. Here's a case of a congresswoman forgetting her manners.

At a forum in Houston Tuesday, Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat, took questions from constituents. As one woman stood up and posed her question, Jackson Lee began talking on her cell phone, seemingly ignoring her constituent. Someone in the crowd can be heard angrily saying, "Seriously? Really? I mean, come on. Dude!"

After a few minutes, the congresswoman hung up and answered the question.

The phone faux pas was, of course, captured on video and posted on YouTube:



Somewhere Judith Martin -- Miss Manners -- is cringing.

Naturally, Republicans have seized on Jackson Lee's lack of etiquette, proclaiming it emblematic of all that is wrongheaded about the health care debate.

So who was Jackson Lee talking to? In an interview with The Washington Post, the congresswoman claimed she was on the phone with . . . the House health care hotline:

"I had been on the cell phone getting a series of questions answered," Jackson Lee said. "I don't know why (Republicans think) it's so challenging. I happen to be able to think, listen and maybe even talk at the same time."

If true, that's probably the only acceptable answer. But even if it was the pope or the president calling, it doesn't make her behavior any less rude.