The Beltway media only seems to truly sit up and take notice when a radical rightwing Congressman screams at Obama during an official address, but the reality is that Joe Wilson’s scream is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to understanding the lunacy that passes for today’s Republican party.  At yesterday’s gathering of loonies in D.C.,  or what Politico describes as "a conservative rally", one printed sign that was being passed out read "Bury Obamacare with Kennedy."  There’s nothing truly "conservative" about a demonstration featuring Confederate flags, signs accusing Obama of being a terrorist, and other signs comparing Obama to Hitler, and, perhaps most revealing of all, signs referring to Obama as the "long-legged Mack Daddy".  These are radicals spouting the same stale rhetoric we’ve seen at tea parties and town halls, trotting out more of the same mindless slogans and ugly racial innuendoes. 

Oh yeah, coincidentally it turns out that almost everyone there was white.   Must be a coincidence that it’s only white people who flock to events where people are accusing Obama of being a "bloodsucking alien" or an "Obamunist", and still wondering where Obama’s birth certificate is.  These are all highly legitimate questions that are fairly included in our national debate, and I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before African-Americans and Hispanics start raising the same questions.  (According to Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), the reason only white people showed up yesterday was "just the time and the organization and the media that promoted it".)  

It’s one thing for a bunch of "puny anonymities", as Oliver Wendell Holmes might have put it, to get together and blather on about how socialism is descending on the United States in the form of increased customers for private health insurance customers.  What’s really striking, or should be, is that Republican members of Congress proudly associate themselves with these extremists.  Sen.  DeMint called the assembled worthies "freedom fighters" and declared that he’s "never been so proud to be an American."  A number of other Republican members of Congress, including Reps. Pence, Blackburn, Gingrey, and Price, also planned to attend and speak.

That’s today’s Republican party–a place where you can feel at home among people waving signs comparing Obama to Hitler, others with signs depicting a crudely racist caricature of the president,  and children brandishing signs asking "where is the long form birth certificate"? (from what I understand, that is a burning question in elementary schools across the nation).   I look forward to seeing Wolf Blitzer, Chuck Todd, Andrea Mitchell, David Gregory and the rest asking Sen. DeMint and his colleagues why they are proud to associate themselves with radicalism and racism.