RIGHT WING FREAK OUT OVER HEALTH CARE KICKS INTO HIGH GEAR

From MSNBC:

Cantor: Dems capitalizing on extremist threats

Lawmakers uniformly condemned the harassment, but that's where the agreement ended. Democrats said Republicans were slow to condemn the vigilantism, while Republicans said Democrats were playing politics with the threats.

"By ratcheting up the rhetoric, some will only inflame these situations to dangerous levels," said House Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia. "Enough is enough. It has to stop."

At least 10 Democrats now have reported harassment, including incidents involving at least four of their offices in New York, Arizona and Kansas. More frequent have been obscenity-laced, sometime-threatening phone messages. An undisclosed number of lawmakers have been given increased police protection.

More here.

And from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Newt Gingrich: Democrats bear some responsibility
for threats, anger over health care

“But look, I think there’s something very disingenuous about the Democratic leaders who attacked the tea party movement, who refused to hold town hall meetings, who refused to go back home, who kept the Congress locked up in Washington, and are now shocked that people are angry.

“I think the Democratic leadership has to take some moral responsibility for having behaved with such arrogance, in such a hostile way, that the American people are deeply upset. So let’s be honest with this. This is a game that they’re playing.

Click here for the rest.

For your understanding, here's what the Republicans are saying in plain English:

Yeah, yeah, threats are bad. We don't support the threats. But if the Democrats hadn't passed health care reform in the first place, there wouldn't be any threats, so it's, you know, kind of their fault, anyway. And telling the press and the police about these threats, which are their fault, is playing politics, which is wrong. Of course, we don't ever play politics in the Republican Party. The Democrats are bad people.

None of this is a surprise. The threats, the spitting on Congressmen as they went in to vote for HCR, the n-word being hurled at Congressional Black Caucus members as they arrived at the Capitol, and more, this is all par for the course, nothing more than a reflection of the incendiary and apocalyptic rhetoric in which conservatives have been wallowing since Obama was elected.

Actually, it goes back to the Clinton era.

And this kind of condemnation/counterattack isn't new either. Remember when that abortion doctor was gunned down? The right wing was like "Well murder is bad, of course, but Dr. Tiller killed thousands of babies, and that's even worse." There is no shock. No remorse. No sense of "hey, this is fucked up; our people are threatening the lives of Congressmen simply because they did their job." All we get is self-righteousness and sanctimony.

Really, this is what I hate most about the modern American Conservative Movement: they simply don't give a shit what anybody else thinks, don't want to know when they're totally wrong, and get really really really pissed off when they don't get their way. Smug doesn't even come close to describing their attitudes about democracy. It's like Dick Cheney coming into the White House back in '01 and proclaiming that "the grownups are in charge now." Like you're a teenager or something if you're not a conservative.

I continue to be very concerned about the ongoing right wing flirtation with violence as legitimate political strategy, but, on the other hand, I'm loving this, too. Conservatives are totally freaking out because they have failed utterly. Bunch of pussy sore losers. Their howls are music to my ears.

They sure do squeal like a pig, don't they?


A symbolic representation of Republicans dealing with a major legislative loss.
Okay, actually, it's Ned Beatty being raped in Deliverance. Same thing.

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