Where Are They?

by digby

David Broder evidently wants the elders of the Republican Party to step up and put an end to the madness at these Town Halls. He seems to think they will suffer a backlash because the people are being disrespectful of their leadership. He also seems not to have noticed that the screamers are mostly elders themselves — and that the Republican elders agree with them. I wrote a post last week about the chief GOP senate negotiator talking up the euthanasia charge on talk radio and yesterday he repeated the insanity in a Town Hall. It’s hard to see where Broder thinks the line is supposed to be drawn.

The Villagers have spent the last 30 years chasing phantom hippies and black panthers. They actually thought the 50 something centrist Bill Clinton was Jerry Garcia because there were pictures of him with long hair and his wife used her own name. They have not cared about or even noticed the radicalism on the right, which doesn’t fit their picture of scary political terrorists because right wingers look like what they think of as Real Americans. How in the world can these nice, white middle aged and elderly people possibly be so crazy?

Every editor in the country should assign all of his reporters and spokesmodels to listen to Limbaugh, beck savage, an d the rest for a solid week. Then they might not be so surprised to find out that the people who listen to them are paranoid, racist, hysterical, narcissistic and stupid. And there are a lot of them. And they aren’t wearing headbands or tie-dyed t-shirts. They look just like David Broder and Cokie Roberts.

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