David A. Patten's article on Newsmax that covered Obama's Town Hall meeting outside Bozeman on Friday has some interesting highlights.

Pundits are warning that a fact-challenged President Barack Obama is hurting his own credibility and further confusing the healthcare debate, after yet another litany of misstatements and dubious assertions during Friday's town hall meeting in Belgrade, Mont.

David Limbaugh wrote a recent column for Townhall about how Obama's credibility is already shot.  That was published the same day as the Montana meeting, but made no mention of the meeting itself.  Limbaugh writes:

Obama has said he just wants a dialogue with the American people on health care. Sorry, but there are just so many times a person can say the exact opposite of what he means and retain a shred of credibility. While saying he wants this dialogue, he's also telling his opponents to shut up -- literally. Even more revealing, he was adamant that this bill be passed before the August recess -- a bill whose provisions he admitted or pretended he was not familiar with. How could there have been a dialogue if he had already made up his mind and if the deadline he had artificially imposed could not possibly have allowed a dialogue?

How, indeed?  The Patten article goes on to mention that tickets for the event were not supposed to be handed out on a first-come-first served basis until 9am, yet had all been given out before 8am, to a lot of union people who were bused in from Chicago.  This is a tactic we've seen employed at other Town Hall meetings of late, hosted by members of congress.  In this case, Obama's union homies were bused in from Chicago, which, let's face it, is an awfully long way from Bozeman.  It just smells really fishy.

His strategy of reiterating talking points that already had been debunked or challenged drew heat from analysts who fault tactics they say are long on presidential charisma but sometimes short on credibility.

"Apparently he's more committed to 'selling' his plan than telling the truth," lamented Heritage Foundation spokesman Jim Weidman.

"Clever might have worked on less important issues, at least if the president had taken more care to maintain his credibility, which he has badly shot on healthcare," commentator Andy McCarthy fired off on a National Review blog.

Limbaugh isn't the only one who thinks Obama's credibility is shot.

"Something's a little fishy here," Jim Walters, eastern coordinator for Resistnet, a grass-roots organization affiliated with the Grassfire.org Alliance, told Newsmax prior to the event. "They weren't supposed to start handing out tickets until 9 o'clock. I had people up here at 8, and the tickets were already gone."

Walters estimated 1,000 people were gathered outside the airport near Bozeman, Mont., where the event was held. Walters told Newsmax that union members who arrived via bus from Chicago had initiated an altercation with town hall protesters. He said he saw police making several arrests.

What's unclear from the article is who was being arrested -- the union goons or the protesters.

The article quotes Rich Noyes, research director at th Media Research Center, states, regarding the Obama administration's bet that the MSM "remains sufficiently dominant to swing the debate in Obama's favor."

"It may have the boomerang effect of getting people more familiar with the facts than they otherwise would be, to the point where people may not come to the conclusion the network reporters and the White house want," Noyes says.

I think that's already happening.  Noyes is referring to people increasingly getting information from the internet, rather than the broadcast networks.  If that were not the case, would we see so many protesters at these Town Hall meetings?  I think not.

Limbaugh's article states:

All the proof we need that Obama and Democrats recognize the authenticity of this grass-roots protest is their hysterical reaction to it. They wouldn't be hyperventilating about it if they believed it to be fake, but would use their super-majorities to ram through this bill.

They also wouldn't be busing in union goos to populate these meetings, and rough up the crowds of protesters.

The Newsmax article says Everett Wilkinson, a leader and spokesman for Tea Party Patriots . . .

. . . emphasizes that the Tea Party Patriots' movement transcends party lines. And despite efforts to paint town hall protesters as violent extremists, corporate lackeys, or GOP operatives, voters identify with them and sympathize with their concerns, he says.

Obviously.  The lefties wouldn't be panicking, were that not the case.  Until the unions started busing in members to these meetings, the attendees were mostly senior citizens and small business owners, of all political parties.  Why?  Because they were either retired, or had the flexibility to take time off work to attend.  Your average rank-and-file employee doesn't have that luxury, unless he or she blows a vacation day on it.  The fact that some attendees were able to take time off work certainly explains the business suits they were wearing; there's nothing sinister about it.

And, yes, Obama and the lefties are losing credibility.