Rachel Maddow summarizes what has been a weekend of protests, intimidation and vandalism by some of the people protesting the passage of the health care bill among others. Despite having members called n**ger and f**got and offices being vandalized, the House Democrats walked through the protests on the way to the Capital Sunday morning arm in arm.
It really is time for the Democrats to start denouncing the Republicans and these astroturf groups they're aligned with for helping to incite these people. Especially their own members of Congress like Michele Bachmann, Mike Pence, Marsha Blackburn and Jim DeMint who have been attending these rallies. Bart Stupak of all people actually said something about it tonight on both Hardball and Anderson Cooper's show but all in all the response has been pretty tepid.
I understand people being upset about this health care bill if they don't like that it was passed. Believe me, none of us are going to be happy about it passing if it doesn't get improved and are not satisfied with the bill in its present form. What's been going on with people being threatened and intimidated is just completely unacceptable though.
Bob Herbert of the NY Times adds this:
At some point, we have to decide as a country that we just can’t have this: We can’t allow ourselves to remain silent as foaming-at-the-mouth protesters scream the vilest of epithets at members of Congress — epithets that The Times will not allow me to repeat here.
It is 2010, which means it is way past time for decent Americans to rise up against this kind of garbage, to fight it aggressively wherever it appears. And it is time for every American of good will to hold the Republican Party accountable for its role in tolerating, shielding and encouraging foul, mean-spirited and bigoted behavior in its ranks and among its strongest supporters.
For decades the G.O.P. has been the party of fear, ignorance and divisiveness. All you have to do is look around to see what it has done to the country. The greatest economic inequality since the Gilded Age was followed by a near-total collapse of the overall economy. As a country, we have a monumental mess on our hands and still the Republicans have nothing to offer in the way of a remedy except more tax cuts for the rich.
This is the party of trickle down and weapons of mass destruction, the party of birthers and death-panel lunatics. This is the party that genuflects at the altar of right-wing talk radio, with its insane, nauseating, nonstop commitment to hatred and bigotry.
Glenn Beck of Fox News has called President Obama a “racist” and asserted that he “has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”
Mike Huckabee, a former Republican presidential candidate, has said of Mr. Obama’s economic policies: “Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff.”
The G.O.P. poisons the political atmosphere and then has the gall to complain about an absence of bipartisanship.
Read the entire editorial here -- An Absence of Class
