Must Read on 'Tea Party' rally: No One Said Freedom Was Pretty

[flpoljunkie]

(Am normally not a fan of Dana Milbank, but this is a definite must read, and in its entirety.)

No one said freedom was pretty
By Dana Milbank
Friday, November 6, 2009

The call to arms went out last week.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who made her name suggesting that Barack Obama and other Democrats have "anti-American" views, appeared on Fox News on Friday night and urged Americans to come to Washington to protest: "We need to pay a house call on Nancy Pelosi and tell her what she can do with the Pelosi health-care plan."

They came as directed, about 5,000 tea-party regulars and antiabortion activists, to the West Lawn of the Capitol on Thursday for what Bachmann called a "Super Bowl of Freedom," sponsored by Republican members of Congress. And what a game it was.

Many of the demonstrators chanted "Weasel Queen," their pet name for the speaker of the House. Others wore masks of Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.); they were covered in fake blood and carrying dolls representing aborted fetuses, as the Grim Reaper led them in chains to hell.

In the front of the protest, a sign showed President Obama in white coat, his face painted to look like the Joker. The sign, visible to the lawmakers as they looked into the cameras, carried a plea to "Stop Obamunism." A few steps farther was the guy holding a sign announcing "Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds" , accusing Obama of being part of a Jewish plot to introduce the antichrist.

But the best of Bachmann's recruits were a few rows into the crowd, holding aloft a pair of 5-by-8-foot banners proclaiming "National Socialist Healthcare, Dachau, Germany, 1945." Both banners showed close-up photographs of Holocaust victims, many of them children.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/05/AR2009110504566.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[iamjoy]

1. Obama is a Nazi AND Part of a Jewish Scheme?

Well that makes total sense. Not.

[Clio the Leo]

2. "as the Grim Reaper led them in chains to hell."

Others wore masks of Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.); they were covered in fake blood and carrying dolls representing aborted fetuses, as the Grim Reaper led them in chains to hell.

And they did this WHILE they were flaunting their supposed Christianity. I bet Jesus is PROUD! :eyes:

[Botany]

3. They are just pissed a black man is president

n/t

[dalaigh lllama]

4. They can add irony deficiency to their other inadequacies

By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they denounced government-run health care. But Bachmann overlooked this irony as she said farewell to her recruits.

[Ganja Ninja]

7. Hopefully their insurance will refuse coverage on the basis their irony deficiency was ..

a pre-existing condition.

[Bitwit1234]

5. Do you all have guts

Write, call or email your representatives, the Ethic Committee and even the president have this nut investigated for inciting a riot and threatening members of congress. Didn't she tell the mob to get in the face of members of congress and scare them.

Do you all remember when McKinney was stopped by a Capitol Police Officer and she struck back at him for being manhandled. Well the republican members of congress called for her to be arrested and to resign. She did have to apologize. Why should Bachmann be treated differently. She should be called to the floor of the HOuse and I think even arrested. If you or I incited a mob to threaten members of congress what would happen to us. I am going to search and see if I can find an email address to urge the ethic committee to investigate Bachmann. She is a nut and she is going to cause a tragedy, you had better believe it. I have already written an email to C.R.E.W. asking them to check it out. Nothing will probably come of it but enough people complain about this stuff then we will get them under the eye of the public. Most people don't know that this is a small rabid rabble group of immature individuals who no matter what Obama's administration does, would not satisfy them. They are going to cause trouble like they did with President Clinton, just because they can and Networks like Fox and CNN give them the platform to spew their hate and violence. I am sick and tired of this and I for one am going to email everybody in congress till someone listens. JOIN ME. Get her butt arrested.

[dgibby]

11. Since I live in SC and have no representation in Congress,

I won't bother to contact those lunatics, but I will contact the Southern Poverty Law Center and ask (again) that they designate and track the GOP as a hate group.

[quiet.american]

12. You bet! nt

[BlueGirlRedState]

6. Why the Joker?

I didn't see the last Batman movie, so I'm not clear why in particular the tea party nutjobs are casting Obama as the Joker.

Is it they just want to put whiteface on him?

[spelldmilk]

8. Okay, that is some serious crazy:

"By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they denounced government-run health care. But Bachmann overlooked this irony as she said farewell to her recruits.
"You," she said, "are the most beautiful sight any of us freedom fighters have seen for a long time."

[Akoto]

9. I still don't get the "Obama as Joker" thing.

The Joker, as portrayed in The Dark Knight, was an anarchist. He despised any sort of order. Communism and Socialism would've been on the list, just as much as Democracy. They're nothing alike!

Oy. Nutcases.

[LeftishBrit]

10. What seriously insane nuts!

WHY is government provided health care seen as such a menace? - Akin to Nazism, Communism, and an Evil Jewish Plot (all at the same time!!!) Most other developed countries have government provided health care - and the USA has it for older people - so what is the fear? I know that many right wingers have a sort of hatred for *any* government, and *any* social provision - and that scares *me*. It's less extreme in the UK, but it exists.

I suppose the fact that the current president is black, and internationally connected, whips up their fear and hate even more.

'The lawmakers set the tone early, when Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) asked for the Pledge of Allegiance because "it drives the liberals crazy" to hear the "under God" part (his bravado was premature, for he left out the word "indivisible").'

Somehow that seems symbolic; people like that often *don't* feel allegiance to their country as a whole, but only to their section of it, and like to whip up divisions. I once saw an old issue of Mad Magazine - about 40 years old, I think - which defined a 'Super-Patriot' as 'someone who loves his country - while hating 93% of the people in it'.