Originally, the traditional town hall meeting was defined as a method used by public communities (citizens of a town, for example) to influence officeholders. They have evolved into something that is exactly opposite–they are now carefully managed theatrical events that officeholders artificially construct in order to influence the public.

from Wikipedia:

A town hall meeting is an informal public meeting derived from the traditional town meetings of New England. Similarly to those meetings, everybody in a community is invited to attend, voice their opinions, and hear the responses from public figures and elected officials, although attendees rarely vote on an issue. In today’s heterogeneous communities with large populations, more often, town hall meetings are held so that people can influence elected officials in their decision making or to give them a chance to feel that their voices are being heard.

WaPo’s Description of the Obama "town hall"

In the stage-managed event, questions for Obama came from a live audience selected by the White House and the college, and from Internet questions chosen by the administration’s new-media team. Of the seven questions the president answered, four were selected by his staff from videos submitted to the White House Web site or from those responding to a request for "tweets."
The president called randomly on three audience members. All turned out to be members of groups with close ties to his administration: the Service Employees International Union, Health Care for America Now, and Organizing for America, which is a part of the Democratic National Committee. White House officials said that was a coincidence.
The most dramatic moment came from Debby Smith, 53, of Appalachia, Va., who was near tears as she described for Obama her fragile health, including a recently discovered tumor for which she cannot get treatment.
Obama waved her over and hugged her, saying, "I don’t want you to feel like you’re all alone." He promised to "find out what we can do within existing law" and called Smith the "perfect example" of the kind of person his health plan is intended to help.

It was no accident that Ms. Smith was there at the town hall meeting to provide that "perfect example" for Mr. Obama. Smith was selected to be at the event by the White House. Her interaction with the President was by far the most emotional and grabbing part of the "town hall", and the White House deserves full marks for high production values.

The Obama Administration’s continuation of this particularly obnoxious and sneaky practice from the Bush years is clearly grating on some media nerves. Chip Reid and Helen Thomas assailed White House Spokesman Richard Gibbs about the administration’s practices:

“It feels like the concept of a town hall, I think, is to have an open public forum. And this sounds like a very tightly controlled audience and list of questions. Why do it that way?” asked Reid.
White House press secretary Richard Gibbs deflected the question, but that only raised the ire of Helen Thomas, UPI’s veteran correspondent who has long been at the top of the White House press corps totem pole.
“We have never had that in the White House,” Thomas said, referring to the degree that press events are pre-scripted in the Obama administration. “I’m amazed, I’m amazed at you people who called for openness and transparency…”
That’s when things got testy, and Gibbs looked very uncomfortable as Reid and Thomas took turns attacking his evasive answers.

When the Bush administration held “members-only” rallies and staged tightly controlled marketing infomercials and passed them off as news conferences, we were disgusted by the stenographic media and Bush–and rightfully so.

So what are we to think of an Obama administration that appears to be using the same tricks?