Times Watch Quotes of Note: Obama-Care Protesters = Violent Racists of Civil Rights Movement
Obama-Care Protesters = Violent Racists of Civil Rights Movement
"Forty-five
years ago, John Lewis began the third of what became society-shifting
civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. On Sunday, the
anniversary of that famous trek, he joined hands with fellow House
Democrats and marched past jeering protesters into the Capitol to
remake the nation's health care system....Mr. Lewis said he was not
intimidated as he walked to the Capitol with his colleagues, including
Ms. Pelosi. In 1965, Mr. Lewis was bloodied and beaten by the police as
he marched for civil rights." - Congressional reporter Carl Hulse,
March 22.
Great Minds Think Alike, and So Do Liberal Times Columnists
"But
the laughs evaporated soon enough. There's nothing entertaining about
watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights
hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. And as the week
dragged on, and reports of death threats and vandalism stretched from
Arizona to Kansas to upstate New York, the F.B.I. and the local police
had to get into the act to protect members of Congress and their
families. How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to
Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn't recognize its own
small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht. The weapon of choice for
vigilante violence at Congressional offices has been a brick hurled
through a window. So far." - Columnist Frank Rich, March 28.
"The far-right extremists have gone into conniptions. The
bullying, threats, and acts of violence following the passage of health
care reform have been shocking, but they're only the most recent
manifestations of an increasing sense of desperation....Even the optics
must be irritating. A woman (Nancy Pelosi) pushed the health care bill
through the House. The bill's most visible and vocal proponents
included a gay man (Barney Frank) and a Jew (Anthony Weiner). And the
black man in the White House signed the bill into law. It's enough to
make a good old boy go crazy....Instead of jettisoning the radical
language, rabid bigotry and rising violence, the Republicans justify
it." - Columnist Charles Blow, March 27.
"What has been really striking has been the eliminationist
rhetoric of the G.O.P., coming not from some radical fringe but from
the party's leaders....For today's G.O.P. is, fully and finally, the
party of Ronald Reagan - not Reagan the pragmatic politician, who
could and did strike deals with Democrats, but Reagan the
anti-government fanatic, who warned that Medicare would destroy
American freedom." - Columnist Paul Krugman, March 26.
"It wasn't just the death panel smear. It was racial
hate-mongering, like a piece in Investor's Business Daily declaring
that health reform is 'affirmative action on steroids, deciding
everything from who becomes a doctor to who gets treatment on the basis
of skin color.'" - Columnist Paul Krugman, March 22.
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