Wednesday, March 2, 2011

For laughs: ‘Who is going to shoot Obama?’


By PAT MURPHY
Express Staff Writer

Georgia's 10th District congressman, Paul Broun, is less well known nationwide than Minnesota's loopy Rep. Michele "Death Panels" Bachmann. But Broun is far more reckless and dangerous.

How so?

As a medical physician, Broun supposedly brings respectability and authenticity to his pronouncements, as opposed to the rants of a mere redneck country racist.

Broun has driven some constituents, especially those who imbibe and rely on tea party bumper stickers and sound bites for their "facts," to accept the most monumental lies about President Obama and how he allegedly is transforming America into a police state, presumably while Rep. Broun and other Republicans supinely sit on their hands accepting this radical coup.

Among Broun's appalling charges:

( Obama's call for a "civilian national reserve corps" could be groundwork for a Marxist dictatorship. President George W. Bush formed a very similar organization—"Civilian Response Corps"—in 2006.

( After the Centers for Disease Control reported that Americans don't eat enough fruit and vegetables, Broun warned darkly that CDC agents would be "calling people and finding out how many fruits and vegetables you eat. This is socialism of the highest order."

( During Obama's 2011 State of the Union speech, Broun tweeted, "Mr. President, you don't believe in the Constitution. You believe in socialism."

So thoroughly brainwashed was one 10th District voter by Broun about Obama that he blurted out during a Broun town hall meeting, "Who is going to shoot Obama?"

The room filled with laughter.

Broun made no attempt, however, to repudiate or condemn the remark, and it wasn't until a few days later, after a torrent of criticism swept Broun's office, that he issued a press statement repudiating the "shoot," and informed the Secret Service, which interviewed the man and dismissed him as no threat.

Later, Broun also lamely tried to dismiss his unwillingness to instantly condemn the "shoot" remark. He said he declined to "dignify" the "Who is going to shoot Obama?" question.

"Dignify"? Mustering such self-righteousness when he publicly accuses the president of trying to institute a Marxist police state requires not just gall, but hallucination.

Ugly, unrelenting, widespread Republican slanders against Obama reveal this: Absent any believable arguments, the "No!" party's goal of making Obama a one-term president must therefore continue to reach for the absurd and hope enough Americans are so unread, so unthinking and so gullible that they'll believe anything.

If Rep. Broun dishes out more hatefulness, the question of "Who is going to shoot Obama?" may be more than a laugh-line in Georgia's 10th Congressional District.




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