Okay, yesterday was a new low. What had been the radical right fringe of the Republican Party was embraced by the party's leadership. Racism is now an official plank of the Republican platform. Yes, this is a rant.

Last week Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann announced on Fox News that she was organizing a protest rally against fair, equitable, and cost-effective healthcare. The insurance industry propaganda agency "Americans for Prosperity" filled 25 to 29 (depending on news source) busses with paid protestors and the whites defense organization FreedomWorks reportedly supplied up to 15 more bus loads. (Though they weren't "paid employees" they were "volunteers who were compensated for their time".) These people were issued signs with pictures of Obama as Hitler or as the Joker from Batman and cards with talking points when they arrived. A very popular sign -- visible in the video clip linked below -- was a huge picture of a pile of naked corpses of Jews murdered at Dachau emblazoned with the words: "National Socialist Healthcare." These 40+ bus-loads of compensated volunteers joined the real protestors (there were some) chanting slogans and waving the prefabricated signs provided by their non-employers, bringing the crowd up to nearly 4,000. (That's four thousand according to the DC police. According to Fox News it was 20,000 to 45,000.) All were white.

Bachmann, who had announced this as a rally throughout a week of frenetic promotion and organization, declared this was both a spontaneous "meet-up" and a press conference. Of course she also advocated revolution against the government and denounced the current presidency as illegitimate.

Much has been made of the fact Rep. John Boehner -- who recently introduced a healthcare plan that reduced the number of people currently covered by three million and would cost several billion more than what we have already -- said drew his inspiration from the Constitution, then read the inspiring passage -- which was from a completely different document. However for me the most chilling part of the whole affair -- much more disturbing than the business-as-usual whipping white racists into a frenzy of Obama-bashing of the rally itself came at a real press conference after the event. Rep. Boehner, leader of the Republican Party in Congress, was asked about the racist images of Obama and specifically about the horrific image of naked corpses, the bodies of Jews murdered by the Nazis at Dachau, being used to symbolize healthcare reform in America. He said he saw it as an example of patriotic Americans expressing their legitimate concerns and did not think it was in any way insensitive or inappropriate.


But don't just take my word for it. Watch for yourself: Countdown report on the rally.

ETA: Behind this cut is a picture of the Dachau poster Rep. Boehner calls an example of "patriotic Americans expressing their legitimate concerns" (this is very not-good, folks):