As I'm sure you all know, President Obama visited the Gallatin Valley yesterday, staging a "Town Hall" meeting out at the local airport. I'd been a little worried that our valley's cranky, far-right contingent would end up embarrassing the state, but by all accounts the afternoon went off almost without a hitch. Since the airport is nearest the town of Belgrade, most of the national news reports used that name in their datelines, finally giving Belgrade its official fifteen minutes of fame. I was amused, though, when the
All Things Considered story on the event described us as being "kind of in the middle of nowhere, which a lot of things are in Montana."
I was out of town for the day, but drove by the airport about four hours before the event was scheduled to start, and things were already turning into a madhouse. There were designated areas for demonstrators (far from where the president was) which were drawing huge and rambunctious crowds. Separate areas for both sides of the ongoing health-care debate, and I guess the two sides just waved their signs and yelled at each other ... until everyone was drenched by an August rainstorm. As so often happens in Montana, Mother Nature wins.
This is a quick shot I took out of the car window as I was driving by yesterday morning.
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