Steny Hoyer, the House majority leader, has made himself something of a flashpoint in the health-care debate. Tensions were already running high, but Hoyer’s decision to join with House speaker Nancy Pelosi and publish an op-ed accusing those opposed to the proposed reforms of “drowning out opposing views” and being “un-American” didn’t do anyone any favors — certainly not the pro-reform side.

Still, when I arrived for the town hall being held by the congressman from Maryland’s fifth district last night at a high school in Waldorf, I was two hours early, and the place already looked like Calcutta on Free Malaria Shot Day. The line wrapped around the massive building and was several hundred yards long. I overheard one of Hoyer’s staff saying they had estimated that almost 800 people were at the town hall already.

No signs were allowed inside the building for the event, but outside in line it was the usual pageant of democracy. People were waving placards for the camera and engaging in (mostly) friendly arguments in line. (See the pictures after the jump.) I must say that due to good work by Hoyer’s staff and local volunteers — the high-school boys with the Air Force Jr. ROTC did an excellent job ushering — the logistics of the event were very well handled. I counted roughly 1,500 seats, which were filled to capacity by the time the event began. As for the actual town hall, well, as political theater it stuck me as somewhat disastrous.

The event was scheduled to run from 7:00 to 8:30 pm. Surprisingly, it started close to on time with remarks from Hoyer. His speech was made up of such canned Democratic talking points that it would normally have been unremarkable, except that when you hear all the current Democratic health-care talking points assembled in one place, it’s kind of hard not to notice how breathtakingly disingenous they are.

• “You keep your plan if you like it” and “The only way someone would be in a public plan is a result of their own individual choice,” Hoyer said. Presumably when small employers dump their company health insurance, secure in the knowledge that they have a “public option” — that will be a matter of choice? And by the way, “That’s not true, however, according to FactCheck.org, an independent truth squad run by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.“

• “The House bill will not reduce benefits for seniors.” But the president has been pushing $622 billion in cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, with a big chunk coming from the popular and successful Medicare Advantage program, which allows seniors to use Medicare funds to choose supplemental private insurance plans. Again, hard to see how this plan preserves “choice.”

• Hoyer assures us that funds for preventive medicine will save money on health expenditures. Hoyer apparently didn’t read the Washington Post that very morning:

“Study Raises Questions About Cost Savings From Preventive Care.”

And so on. Hoyer’s remarks took up almost half the time allotted for the event. Then he announced that after he was done speaking, he wouldn’t take questions right away, but rather wanted everyone to hear from a “Life Experiences Panel.”

This made crowd angry. CONSTITUENTS SMASH. It wasn’t entirely a partisan objection, either. Even health-care reform supporters seemed to think this was a waste of time. Not surprisingly, all of the panelists’ life experiences led them to believe greater government involvement in health care was a fantastic idea. This was the Westminster Kennel Club of partisan dog and pony shows, and the crowd was having none of it.

The first speaker was barely heard over the crowd’s objections, as she got emotional talking about not being able to pay for health insurance for her employees. Someone in the back yelled, “I’ve got my own problems, lady!” and she wrapped it up. The next speaker was a career Air Force officer turned federal worker who was now retired. Between the military and federal pension, combined with Medicare, clearly no one knows the horrors of health insurance better than that guy. He got booed when he announced health care was a “moral obligation.” The next speaker was a pediatrician — think of the children! — and the last was a Vietnam veteran who had the good sense to pacify the angry crowd by cutting off the moderator, announce that the bills being proposed wouldn’t hurt veterans’ benefits, and announce he was done.

To his credit, Hoyer finally took questions via random lottery for almost the next two hours. What is not to his credit is how he answered those questions. I could pick apart the political objections to his claims some more, but Hoyer seemed bound and determined to sink himself by simply being tone-deaf.

When one woman on Social Security disability, and obviously sympathetic to the Democrats’ proposed reforms, explained that she had to drop her $400-a-month health insurance, Steny Hoyer (D-Math) explained that the current plan would help her because it would cap out-of-pocket expenses at $5,000 a year. Another sympathetic questioner wondered why he didn’t have a bipartisan Life Experience Panel, before asking a fawning question.

If his handling of positive questions was less than deft, his reponse to opponents was flaming-dirigible bad. After he repeatedly assured everyone that this bill was fiscally responsible, another questioner asked somewhat incredulously how this bill would save money. Hoyer responded, “I didn’t say the bill would pay for itself, I said it would be paid for.” The angry crowd didn’t like that bit of sophistry one bit. And when another questioner asked how he could assure the bill’s fiscal responsibility when Social Security and Medicare were bankrupt, Hoyer responded by saying, “Indeed, I don’t know if they are going bankrupt . . .” and had to wait to continue because of the riotous laughter that ensued.

Easily the most animating issue of the night was illegal immigration. Hoyer repeatedly assured that the bill would not pay for health insurance for illegal immigrants. Again, the crowd didn’t buy it, screaming at Hoyer that the bill did not require verification of citizenship to participate in the public plan. Hoyer responded that his Christian faith meant that health care should be provided to illegal immigrants in emergencies. Aside from the fact that this wasn’t on point — emergency medical care is a small part of the equation — one imagines what the reaction among Democrats would be if religion were cited as a reason to pass a highly partisan piece of legislation.

Anyway, that said, Hoyer did not shirk his responsibility to speak to his consituents, and there’s something to be said for that. It was a long night for everybody. I do wonder if Hoyer already knew that the president was about to pull the rug out from under the public option, which Hoyer spent so much of the evening defending. That might have made it easier to go through the motions

Here are some more pics from the event — starting with the ginormous line to get in:

This woman had a shirt made-up for the occasion, replete with a quote from the dearly departed Ted Kennedy:

Of course, those opposed to health-care reform made an impressive, showing considering MD-5 is a solidly Democratic district that Obama won by 32 points. However, when it came to the political makeup of the crowd, the deck was a bit stacked. I talked to some people a few hundred people back from the front of the line. They said they arrived as soon as the organizers began letting people in the parking lot, just before five o’clock. Everybody who was in line ahead of them was already there. Who was in line ahead of them? Well, the front of the line was a sea of purple SEIU T-shirts:

And some more crowd shots: