Militant, Violent Response to Legislative Change? "Not Our Fault," says GOP leadership.

“Let’s beat the other side to a pulp!... Let’s chase them down! There’s going to be a reckoning.” - Rep. Steve King, Republican of Iowa to Tea Party protestors (March 21, 2010).


"Baby killer!" - Rep. Randy Neubauer (R-Tex), to Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich) as he spoke on the House Floor (March 21, 2010).

"I still would like to do it, but it's still up in the air at this point. We've already started stacking firewood and building the effigy we will have a bonfire. Burning someone in effigy was just gonna be part of it." - Nigel Coleman, head of Danville Tea Party, about burning Rep Tom Perriello (D-VA) and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in effigy, though even most Teabaggers think that's in bad taste.

But the GOP, including Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) (who himself vowed "no cooperation for the rest of the year" with Democrats in any further legislative matters as payback) and Senator John Boehner swear that they didn't do anything to rev the kind of bile and hatred responsible for several attacks on local Democratic Party offices, including bricks through front windows.

In one particularly scary incident, Danville Tea Party head Nigel Coleman himself published what he thought was Congressman Perriello's home address on his Facebook page, encouraging people to "stop by to thank" the Congressman in person for voting in favor of health care reform.  Unfortunately, in typical half-assed Tea Party style, the address turned out to be the address of Perriello's brother.  When informed of his error, Coleman retorted that it was "collateral damage."  This was, of course, before Perriello's brother's home was vandalized, and a propane gas line to the family's outside BBQ was severed, causing what could have been a dangerous gas leak, had it not been found immediately. When questioned about this this morning on MSNBC seemed shocked that people would take his words to heart, claiming he only wanted people to "get close to the Congressman and make their voices heard."

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor went even further, blaming Democrats for causing the problem by publicizing the attacks.  He said that such publicity only "fanned the flames," and claimed that, as the only Republican Jew in the house, he's been subject to a lot of attacks but has kept them all a secret.

Uh-huh.

So this is what our political system has devolved into.  In Obama's first year in office, the stock market has rallied better than at any time in history, with the exception of FDR's presidency.  There is, at last, some kind of movement on health care, even if many of us don't think it goes far enough.  The next move, toward financial re-regulation, is in the on-deck circle.  And conservatives can only counter by cutting gas lines and throwing bricks through windows, then blaming the people who are the objects of the attacks.  

The sickness in the country is palpable, and it's something that no doctor can cure.  I suppose we've been here before, at important times in history, and we've rallied.  But it's sad to me that we have to keep going so far back to inch even a bit forward.