[Vision2020] Nobody Said Freedom Was Pretty

[Tom Hansen]

"More ominously, a man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently
suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after the event began. Medical
personnel from the Capitol physician's office -- an entity that could,
quite accurately, be labeled government-run health care -- rushed over,
attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip."

Courtesy of the Washington Post at:

http://tinyurl.com/ycv8uld

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No one said freedom was pretty
By Dana Milbank
Friday, November 6, 2009

The call to arms went out last week.

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who made her name suggesting that Barack
Obama and other Democrats have "anti-American" views, appeared on Fox News
on Friday night and urged Americans to come to Washington to protest: "We
need to pay a house call on Nancy Pelosi and tell her what she can do with
the Pelosi health-care plan."

They came as directed, about 5,000 tea-party regulars and antiabortion
activists, to the West Lawn of the Capitol on Thursday for what Bachmann
called a "Super Bowl of Freedom," sponsored by Republican members of
Congress. And what a game it was.

Many of the demonstrators chanted "Weasel Queen," their pet name for the
speaker of the House. Others wore masks of Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.); they were covered in fake blood and
carrying dolls representing aborted fetuses, as the Grim Reaper led them
in chains to hell.

In the front of the protest, a sign showed President Obama in white coat,
his face painted to look like the Joker. The sign, visible to the
lawmakers as they looked into the cameras, carried a plea to "Stop
Obamunism." A few steps farther was the guy holding a sign announcing
"Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds" [sic], accusing Obama of
being part of a Jewish plot to introduce the antichrist.

But the best of Bachmann's recruits were a few rows into the crowd,
holding aloft a pair of 5-by-8-foot banners proclaiming "National
Socialist Healthcare, Dachau, Germany, 1945." Both banners showed close-up
photographs of Holocaust victims, many of them children.

Immediately in front of this colorful scenery, various House Republicans
signed autographs and shook hands with the demonstrators. Rep. Virginia
Foxx (N.C.), who recently said the health-care bill is more dangerous than
terrorists, gave out stickers saying "Govt Run Healthcare Makes Me Sick!"

"Who knew a casual comment on TV could generate this?" Rep. Jeb Hensarling
(Tex.) exulted as he stood in front of the Dachau banner.

Now, objecting to the health-care bill is one thing. But doesn't it send
the wrong message for House Republicans to hold an event on the Capitol
grounds full of hateful and gruesome words and images?

"I'm not worried about the message of freedom," Hensarling replied, before
joining his colleagues on the podium to the beat of the Who's "Won't Get
Fooled Again."

Technically, Thursday's GOP-sponsored rally at the Capitol was a "press
conference" (a Capitol Police spokeswoman explained that the lawmakers
didn't have a permit for a demonstration). The speakers took no questions
at this news conference, instead calling, at least a dozen times, for the
Pelosi bill's death.

"Remember some of the other battles: Lexington and Concord, Hamburger
Hill, Pork Chop Hill?" said Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). "We're not going to
leave this hill until we kill this bill!"

"Who will kill this bill?" asked Rep. Paul Broun (R-Ga.). "You will!"

"Let's kill this bill," proposed Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio).

"This bill will be killed," agreed Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).

But, as with a similar rally by Democrats a week before, unpredictable
things tend to happen in the wide-open spaces of the Capitol's West Front.
Minutes into the rally, a breeze toppled the American flag from the stage.

More ominously, a man standing just beyond the TV cameras apparently
suffered a heart attack 20 minutes after event began. Medical personnel
from the Capitol physician's office -- an entity that could, quite
accurately, be labeled government-run health care -- rushed over,
attaching electrodes to his chest and giving him oxygen and an IV drip.

This turned into an unwanted visual for the speakers, as a D.C. ambulance
and firetruck, lights flashing, pulled in just behind the lawmakers. A
path was made through the media section, and the patient, attended to by
about 10 government medical personnel, was being wheeled away on a
stretcher just as House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) stepped to
the microphone. "Join us in defeating Pelosi care!" he exhorted. A few
members stole a glance at the stretcher. Boehner may have been distracted
as well. He told the crowd he would read from the Constitution, then read
the "we hold these truths" bit from the Declaration of Independence.

As you'd expect at a political protest, the messages on signs and buttons
were provocative: "Waterboard Congress," "A Commie Is in the House."

But this protest was unusual because it was an official House GOP event,
and because some of the remarks on the stage were as outrageous as those
in the crowd. The actor Jon Voight, standing with the lawmakers, said of
Obama: "Could it be he has had 20 years of subconscious programming by
Reverend Wright to damn America?"

Even the Rev. Stephen Broden, at the microphone to deliver the closing
prayer, fumed about "death panels inside this death care," adding: "It is
tyranny! It is socialism!"

The lawmakers set the tone early, when Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) asked for
the Pledge of Allegiance because "it drives the liberals crazy" to hear
the "under God" part (his bravado was premature, for he left out the word
"indivisible"). The tone continued to the end, when Rep. John Carter
(R-Tex.) beckoned to the House office buildings and shouted, "Go get 'em!"
Some took him literally: Ten people were arrested at a sit-in at Pelosi's
office in the Cannon Building, where they were crumpling up the
health-care bill one page at a time.

By the time it was over, medics had administered government-run health
care to at least five people in the crowd who were stricken as they
denounced government-run health care. But Bachmann overlooked this irony
as she said farewell to her recruits.

"You," she said, "are the most beautiful sight any of us freedom fighters
have seen for a long time."

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown