By John Kanelis / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

A town hall meeting in Rockwall, Texas, this week produced plenty of fiery rhetoric from a congressman who represents the Northeast Texas region contained in the Fourth Congressional District.

Rep. Pat Fallon came loaded with plenty of ammo to fire at President Biden over Afghanistan (the withdrawal), infrastructure spending, COVID-19 and the Democratic House caucus over the rules it is imposing over the way lawmakers behave.

But … no mention from Rep. Fallon about 1/6 and — if you’ll excuse my use of a term not heard among members of the GOP caucus — the insurrection incited by the former Insurrectionist in Chief.

Nor was there any mention of the riot from any of the folks crammed into a Rotary Club office to hear from their congressman.

Now, I suppose I could have raised the issue, given that I was there covering the event for a local weekly newspaper near where I live. Indeed, I did give it some thought. Then it occurred to me: If I raise the issue and ask Fallon why he and most of his fellow congressional Republicans refuse to examine the why and wherefore of the attack on the Capitol, I would have become part of the story.

I feared the folks in the audience would have turned on me, given that Fallon already had taken shots during his remarks at what he called “the mainstream media.” The audience also took a dim view of the media’s coverage of the 2020 election,

My task while there was to report on the event, to record what Fallon said and to chronicle the town hall meeting for the readers of the newspaper for which I write. That’s it, man. I did my job.

However, it did frustrate me a little to hear not a word from Rep. Fallon — an ardent supporter of the former POTUS — about his take on what went down on 1/6 and whether he believes POTUS 45 was in any way culpable in provoking the attack that sought to overturn the results of a free, fair and legal presidential election … which the former president lost to Joe Biden.

Well, I know the answer to that notion. I just wanted to put him on the record. Oh well. There might be another time. I’ll wait.