Robert Shrum:
In 2009, the hisses of the old plutocracy have escalated into the caterwauling of a manufactured mobocracy intent on shouting down members of Congress and fellow citizens who come to community centers to ask honest questions.
The screamers have been summoned into battle by Limbaugh, Beck and assorted demagogues, whose own hate speech is abetted by prominent Republicans ranging from Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell to Newt Gingrich and the shameless Sarah Palin, with her despicable prevarication that the “evil” Obama health reform provides for a “death panel” with the power to deny care to her Down’s Syndrome child.
Ironically, the lies and legions of the right reached fever pitch at the moment the news arrived that, once again, activist government is succeeding in the wake of free market failure on a scale not seen since the Great Depression.
Jon Taplin:
One of the things that is so pathetic about the demagoguery of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck is that their understanding of history is so puerile that in any civilized debate they would be laughed off the stage.
Of course they don’t allow a civilized debate.