March 25, 2010 10:59 PM UTC

Democrats Inciting Violence Against Themselves...Or Something

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• by: Colorado Pols

We wrote yesterday about several Democratic members of Congress being threatened over health care reform. Today, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, a Republican from Virginia, somehow blamed Democrats for fanning those flames. From MSNBC:

A top House Republican accused Democrats Thursday of “dangerously fanning the flames” of extremism and using reports of vandalism and death threats against pro-health reform bill lawmakers for political gain.

“To use such threats as political weapons is reprehensible,” said Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., who added that security concerns have been overhyped in media coverage of the debate.

Cantor prefaced his comments at a brief press conference by saying that Republican lawmakers do not condone violence in any form. The sentiment was echoed by Minority Leader John Boehner in his weekly press briefing, held earlier on Thursday. He called the threats against some members of congress “unacceptable” and asked people to find other ways to make their voices heard.

Really? Blaming Democrats for “fanning the flames?” Let’s just take a quick look at some of the goings on from the last few weeks:

Republicans Rile Up Opponents of Reform Bill, March 22, The Washington Post:

Inside the House chamber, Republicans placed on Democrats’ chairs photos of the Democratic lawmakers who lost their jobs in 1994. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) went to the well to say that “freedom dies.” Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.), sitting in the front row in a way that displayed the Lone Star flag on his cowboy boots, said Democrats were on “the path of government tyranny.” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) warned of a “fiscal Frankenstein.”…

…Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) hollered on the floor about “dirty deal after dirty deal.” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) likened the Democrats to Soviets. “Say no to totalitarianism!” he said. Somebody in the Republican seats shouted “Baby killer” at Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), an antiabortion Democrat.

The legislators were making such a ruckus on the floor that they couldn’t hear the ruckus just outside their walls. The tea-party demonstrators chanted “Nancy! Nancy!” and held signs saying such things as “Red Queen Nancy — Joseph Stalin Was Not a Saint.”

That would have been the end of it, had Republican lawmakers not stirred things up. First Reps. Buck McKeon (Calif.), Rob Bishop (Utah) and Mike Turner (Ohio) came out waving signs saying “KILL THE BILL.” The crowd went wild. Reps. Mary Fallin (Okla.), Geoff Davis (Ky.) and Bill Posey (Fla.) held the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, and Rep. Pete Sessions (Tex.), head of the House Republicans’ 2010 campaign committee, came out with half a dozen colleagues and more kill-the-bill signs. Rep. Jeff Miller (Fla.) dangled an American flag from the balcony.

“That’s kind of fun,” Fallin said cheerfully after a turn at riling the crowd with signs saying “No” in red letters [Pols emphasis]…

…Boehner said the Democrats were a “disgrace” to Jeffersonian values.

“Hell, no, you can’t!” Boehner shouted at the Democrats.

“No, you can’t! No, you can’t!” echoed the protesters outside.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, March 18, National Review

Boehner says there will be major political consequences for pro-life Democrats who break from the Stupak bloc. “Take [Rep.] Steve Driehaus, for example,” he says. “He may be a dead man. [Pols emphasis] He can’t go home to the west side of Cincinnati. The Catholics will run him out of town.”

Republican Rep. Steve King, March 16, Huffington Post:

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) urged a smaller-than-expected crowd of Tea Party protesters on Tuesday to launch a Velvet Revolution-style uprising against the federal government, saying the parallels are striking between America’s current government and Eastern European communist rule.

Speaking to the Huffington Post shortly after his speech, King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 “would be fine with me.”

“Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can’t get in, they can’t get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people,” he said.

“So this is just like Prague under communist rule?” the Huffington Post asked.

“Oh yeah, it is very, very close,” King replied. “It is the nationalization of our liberty and the federal government taking our liberty over. So there are a lot of similarities there.”

Earlier, King implored the crowd to bring the nation’s capital to a sort of paralysis. Warning, erroneously, that the health care bill would fund abortion and fund care for 6.1 million illegal immigrants, he demanded that concerned citizens “continue to rise up.” [Pols emphasis]

It really isn’t a mystery why some opponents of health care reform think that it is okay to resort to violence against Democrats in response to the bill’s passage. Republicans may not have specifically called for violence, but they sure as hell have toed that line. For Cantor, or any other Republican, to accuse Democrats of “fanning the flames” of violence is shameful.