A Bad August

by tristero

I’ve got a bad feeling about all this:

There are reports that rightwing lunatics brought guns to at least one healthcare event.

And there are reports that rightwing activists are urging that guns be brought to other healthcare events.

All of this is bad enough. But in addition, Glenn Beck urged his listeners not to resort to violence. Now we have that creepy grifter, Sarah Palin, calling for civility, after describing healthcare reform as “evil” and implying that Obama would euthanize her kid.

I don’t believe them. Beck and Palin urging that wingnuts not get violent calls to mind those ever-so-outwardly-pious 19th Century warning guides to vice in New York City which urged their readers to avoid like the very Devil Himself the southwest corner of Bowery and 3rd because there’s a large whorehouse on the third floor that disgracefully offers free wine to the first fifty men who use the password “Johnnie sent me.”

It seems to me that the far right is genuinely expecting something truly violent to happen and only pretending to be concerned; they’re egging their morans on at the same time they’re covering themselves from charges of incitement.

Paranoia? Maybe. Then again, days after Beck urged his brownshirts – sorry, I mistyped, I meant to write “his insane followers” – he was back on the air joking that he poisoned Nancy Pelosi’s wine. Note to comedy lovers: That’s not funny.

Meanwhile, Holy Horse Has Left The Barn, Batman! House Democrats have finally gotten around to setting up a “war room” to push back against the thuggery on the right. That’s nice, kids. Be home by 5:00, ok?

A bad August, indeed.