In August of 2008, an assassin murdered Bill Gwatney, the chair of the Arkansas Democratic Party, in cold blood while standing in party headquarters in Little Rock.
Last year, amid the town hall disruptions, David Scott's office was vandalized with swastikas.
Demonstrators carried firearms at presidential events while holding signs threatening revolution.
Frank Kravotil was hanged in effigy.
Comparisons of Obama to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Osama bin Laden and various other historical villains became standard fare. (Not to mention comparisons to monkeys, Tiger Woods, a witch doctor, and a watermelon farmer, but that's another diary)
Last year, a right-wing domestic terrorist murdered a guard at the Holocaust Museum. Earlier this month a right-wing domestic terrorist tried to shoot his way into the Pentagon.
Last night, someone threw a brick through Louise Slaughter's office window, presumably because her name had been attached to a routine congressional procedure by Republican press flacks (Michelle Malkin has a cute image of Pelosi and Slaughter covered in butchers' aprons and blood--it's the "Slaughter House!" Get it?).
And today, a group of assholes called John Lewis "nigger" and spat on Emanuel Cleaver. They called Barney Frank "faggot."
They did this in the halls of Congress.
We have watched this happen, and we have heard various right-wing political leaders applaud the movement that has spawned this behavior, and we have heard little or no condemnation from them about these atrocious acts (and what condemnation is given is always immediately followed with an excuse for their behavior and a stronger condemnation for whatever Democrats did to make them so angry).
So now I just have to ask a favor:
I know it's too much to ask that you wait until after the funeral, but when some prominent Washington politician ultimately gets shot over this bullshit, can you at least wait until the blood is cleaned up before expressing outrage that anyone would think of connecting it to your unwillingness to say "stop!" over this past year?
Because I'm sure some of us are going to immediately scream "you assholes could have SAID something before it came to this!" And before some idiot like Malkin writes a post or goes on Fox to defend the Right as being totally blameless and calling this an "unforeseeable tragedy," we're going to need some time to calm down.
So can we at least have a couple of days where the bullshit denials of responsibility or shared blame are kept in check? I'd consider it a mitzvah.
Thanks.
UPDATE - 2:50 a.m. : First, what he said.
Second, I think Rep. Ryan's right about using the term "teabaggers" at this point. Once you pull out the N-word, you've pretty much lost the right to not be considered a ball-sucking asshole.