CPAC Highlight Reel

This is the best thing I’ve seen lately: when asked to clarify earlier comments about how he’d like to “bash” certain members of Congress, Joe the Plumber starts rambling… about how they should be killed. The video:



I wish he would provide a list of quotes where members of Congress “say bad things about our troops,” because I’m not sure what would go on it other than gentle insinuations about how troops shouldn’t kill civilians or commit war crimes. Maybe he could mangle Murtha’s quote about troops under pressure making mistakes or something like that, but otherwise the greatest real amount of invective in recent years was from the Swift Boat team- about which Joe presumably has no complaints. If Democrats had a habit of traveling to Iraq to wave purple band-aids at our marines or something maybe he’d have a case, but until then maybe ominous rants about killing elected officials for treason should be put on hiatus?

I’m also a little bit curious about exactly when in American history it was an accepted practice to summarily execute people for imaginary treasonous jabs at troops. Wikipedia lists seven Americans convicted of treason, but most of them seem to have led rebellions or engaged in similarly high-level activities- and even then most resulted in jail sentences delivered in court instead of via vigilantism or however Joe envisions it. Even during the Revolutionary War there only seem to be a small handful of examples, so the best I can say for Joe’s wistful remembrance of the joyous olden days (where anyone where an insufficiently large number of flag lapel pins was burned at the stake) is that he might be confusing American history with feudal European history.

It can only be concluded that Republicans still haven’t figured out why they lost big in both 2006 and 2008. The Palin & Plumber team plays extremely well with a minority of Americans, but to the majority? Letting them run amok as the standard-bearers of modern conservatism is an extremely efficient way of telling the rest of the country “don’t vote Republican.” Obama and the Democrats can only pray that they don’t wise up any time soon.