Okay so the latest concept from the far-right is to blame the Democrats and President Obama for the tea party mobs and any potential violence that could erupt in the process.
Peggy Noonan, for example, thinks the public option is to blame for the fake tea party hooliganism:
We have entered uncharted territory in the fight over national health care. There’s a new tone in the debate, and it’s ugly. At the moment the Democrats are looking like something they haven’t looked like in years, and that is: desperate.
They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan.
DougJ at Balloon Juice points out that this argument has been previously employed by Ross Douthat in the abortion debate. In short: wingnuts wouldn't be shooting people if we just acquiesced and banned abortion.
Ah yes. It's the "I would stop beating my wife if she just fetched my pot pie like I asked!" argument. Classy!
Here's wingnut Mark Levin with Sean Hannity saying that if violence breaks out, President Obama is to blame:
And Lou Dobbs suggesting, "[W]hat this White House is leading us to is direct confrontation, a physical confrontation":
Please tell me that it's not my partisan bias dictating the view that this latest dose of crazy is way beyond rational -- way beyond ridiculous. Sometimes it's difficult to tell what ordinary people are thinking, but I hope beyond hope that regular people can see through this crap on a stick being dished out by the far-right. All of it.
To this point, I'd like to take the opportunity to give credit where credit is due. I've been hard on the Dyan Ratigan unit since he migrated to MSNBC from the Spazzy White Guy Network, but his coverage of the fake tea party hooligans has been excellent, chiefly because he positions himself on TV as a center-right host. This context lends additional cred to his angry debunking of these disruptions -- at least when it comes to independent viewers. Of course Maddow has been extraordinary as well, but anything she does is viewed through the prism of being a very progressive Democrat and might not resonate as much outside of like-minded viewers.
We're really in the belly of this thing, and there's a temptation to get equally as crazy as the wingnuts. I think the best strategy, however, is to continue to debunk the lies and discredit the liars with precision and gusto. It's especially effective because the opposition is especially crazy and their arguments especially thin (death panels??).
So it looks like we're still on the up-slope of the crazy curve. Just remember that reality is on our side and hopefully when the dust settles a little bit, the important players in this debate will fully recognize which side is grounded in facts and reality, and which side is shrieking and lying due to racial bias and sour grapes.