The party in power is held to a higher standard than the opposition. By the same token, those holding town hall meetings are held to a higher standard of decorum than those who attend.

How representatives handle protests at their town hall forums tells a lot about their leadership skill, and how the media reacts to the growing dissent tells a lot about their bias.

In Arlen Specter faces fury: ‘You work for us!’ Politico’s Andy Barr gives Democrat Specter mixed reviews for his performance.

Specter (D-Pa.) fired back Tuesday at a raucous town hall audience that booed and jeered him for more than an hour.

Specter immediately tried to temper the rough crowd, which started booing him before the question-and-answer session even began, with the blunt warning: “If you want to stay in here, we’re not going to tolerate any demonstrations or booing. So, it’s up to you.”

But Specter’s assertion that he was not required to attend the town hall was not received so well.

“You work for us!” shouted several members of the crowd. “You work for us!”

Hot Air Blogger Ed Morrissey had a clever twist on the exchange, “He then angered the crowd all over again by reminding them how lucky they are to be in his presence at all.”

Morrissey took exception to the Senator’s lament that he didn’t get any extra pay for holding town hall meetings to get yelled at.

He makes $174,000 a year for a job that requires him to be at the office four days a week when Congress is in session, which is only about 2/3rds of the year. He has a gold-plated medical and dental package that Specter certainly won’t surrender for the ObamaCare system he’s pushing. Thanks to his 30 years in the Senate, he’s eligible for a pension that will pay 80% of that salary and keep his benefits package in place until he dies.

How many of his constituents have that kind of job? How many do you think will be impressed that Specter deigned to receive his subjects without getting a bonus payment to do it? What a great example of Beltway arrogance.

The New Republic’s Michael Crowley heaped praise on Claire McCaskill’s handling of town hall disruptions.

She was pitch-perfect: polite and responsive without being a pushover, armed with clear and compelling facts (emphasis on things any health reform bill will *not* do) and firm when necessary. She shamed one of the loudest hecklers by reminding him that “we have good manners in Missouri,” but without losing her own temper.

Blogger Matthew Yglesias asks the question many liberals are probably feeling:

I don’t understand why members of congress are holding these town halls. There’s been so much focus on the spectacle of the whole thing that nobody’s really stepped back and explained what the purpose of these events are other than to give us pundits something to chat about.

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell took a new tack in painting the health care opposition with the birther label.

Rendell, a Democrat, told Politico’s Barr that “much of the outrage being demonstrated at town halls across the country comes from so-called birthers, whom he described as ‘absolutely nuts’.”

“I’ve never seen ugliness and rage like this in all my years in office,” the two-term governor and former Philadelphia mayor said.

While birthers are a small fraction of the opposition, both Specter and McCaskill were shouted down by audience members who questioned the president’s natural born citizen credentials, and the issue has nearly derailed most town hall meetings on health care reform.