Barney Frank Bats Down “Nazi” Charge At Town Hall

Rep. Barney Frank batted down a heath care reform protester who not only asked him a question suggesting he supported a Nazi policy (Barack Obama’s healthcare reform) but also held a Hitler-like doctored photo of Obama. And Frank did what a politician needed to do: confront this toxicity of polemics head on:

The Los Angeles Times’ Tim Rutten deals with the issue of the legends about Obama and demonization in this must-read column. But here are some key paragraphs at the end:

It would be convenient to dismiss all this as the undercurrent of paranoid style that is a constant in American politics, but hysterical fantasies of Obama’s purported illegitimacy and secret malevolence continue to bleed into the mainstream media as well…..

Somehow all of this anxious animosity has become the background noise crowding out nearly all substantive and realistic discussion of the critical issues surrounding healthcare reform. This is one of the most complex and consequential initiatives of our time, over which even the most serious-minded people of goodwill are bound to have real differences. The stakes are immense, and the discussion, insofar as the reality of partisan politics permits, ought to reflect that.

Instead, we have Rush Limbaugh darkly informing his listeners that Obama’s real intention is to impose “government control of life and death.” (Limbaugh, of course, never had to worry about whether his prescription drug plan covered Vicodin or OxyContin, or whether his health insurer would pay for rehab.)

A commentator on one of the major conservative political websites told his readers Tuesday that the plan the president and congressional Democrats are proposing will require mandatory nutritional counseling for obese Americans. According to this person, “Obama-care” would send those who disregard the advice to “re-education” camps.

You can’t make this stuff up — but lots of people are, and they’re being encouraged to do so by those in the Republican Party who think that defeat of the president’s healthcare reform initiative at any cost is the GOP’s only hope of substantial recovery in the midterms.

They might be careful what they wish for, because if our national political conversation becomes simply a continuation of talk radio by other means, dominated by people who bring guns to political rallies, who believe that the president of the United States is an alien who wants to euthanize the elderly and imprison the overweight, it won’t matter which party is in power. The country will be as ungovernable as it is deluded.

Many Democrats, thoughtful Republicans (we have several who write here on TMV), and independent voters such as yours truly are watching this demonization festival –which is essentially the growing influence of the emotional, rage-tinged talk radio political culture — with some sadness.

American’s love “take out” food but American politics at all levels increasingly seem to be about “taking out” someone who disagrees with you.

If a politician, reporter, publication, website, blogwriter, or person in comments disagrees with someone , it often triggers an attempt to go on a demonizing attack aimed at trying to put the other side on the defensive and discredit it, rather than address the specific issues the other side raises. The response increasingly is highly personal. Issues are taking second billing to polemics, politically-motivated rage in an escalating “war” to beat back those who dare to see things differently. An issue is raised and the issue is hijacked by personal attacks — so the discussion becomes about the personal attacks.

During Richard Nixon’s time, he had the “plumbers.” Increasingly, parts of American political “debate” on several levels now seem to call for a national septic tank cleaner.

h/T Talking Points Memo

UPDATE: Rush Limbaugh applauds the Nazi question and uses a switch on an old Star Trek joke to make a anti-gay joke about Frank. The term “hate radio” is overused but this is it. HEAR IT HERE.