On Wednesday, defending his practice of holding “telephone town halls” instead of in-person town halls in the Sixth District, Congressman Goodlatte said:

[W]e have found that these telephone town hall meetings provide for an opportunity for a very civil discourse as opposed to what you’ve seen around the country where people turn town meetings into mob scenes and have cardboard cutouts of elected officials and all kinds of other things that kind of demean the process and take away from the people who show up and really want to have a serious discussion about the issues facing the country.

Goodlatte’s professed concern about unruly behavior at his town halls demeaning the process is undercut by a video of a town hall he hosted in 2009, during which the chair of the Roanoke County Democratic Committee spoke in support of including a public option in the Affordable Care Act. Listen to the hostile reaction of much of the audience, drowning out the speaker. Listen to Goodlatte not chastise audience members for their rude behavior. 

In fact he continued holding in-person town hall meetings until 2013, when he mysteriously stopped.

The obvious conclusion is that Goodlatte only cares about “mob scenes” when there’s a chance the “mob” may be angry at him.

(Hat tip: Chris Gavaler)