Lukewarm Condemnation From NRCC

In fact, caliing it "lukewarm" would be generous:

Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA) is one of the Democratic lawmakers who has been targeted after the health care vote -- and one Republican group suggests he has only himself to blame for the situation.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Andy Sere said that while his organization doesn't condone the actions of the person or people who cut a gas line at Perriello's brother's house (apparently under the impression that the home was the congressman's), Perriello is not the victim.

"Central and Southside Virginians are the ones who are going to have the bear the burden of increased taxes," Sere told The Roanoke Times. "What you're seeing is a frustration among his constituents who believe he's not listening to them." * * *

Sere later tried to claim he was he was only referring to marches, demonstrations and letters -- and not physical threats -- but that's total horseshit, of course.

Clearly, GOP leaders don't want to seriously condemn any of the folks who are issuing threats against Democrats because these people form the base of the Republican Party. Check out these results from a recent Harris poll:

* 57 percent of Republicans (32 percent overall) believe that Obama is a Muslim

* 45 percent of Republicans (25 percent overall) agree with the Birthers in their belief that Obama was "not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president"

* 38 percent of Republicans (20 percent overall) say that Obama is "doing many of the things that Hitler did"

* Scariest of all, 24 percent of Republicans (14 percent overall) say that Obama "may be the Antichrist."

This poll goes a long way to explain why the Republicans have chosen to oppose everything Obama supports, even if the idea was originally a Republican one. I mean, how could a senator or congressman support anything Obama does in the face of these numbers? Such a person would have to go home and explain to half of his constituents why he is cooperating with that illegal-alien-Muslim-terrorizer in the White House.

Two-fifths of Republicans think that Obama is doing many things that Hitler did, and one quarter of them think Obama is the Anti-Christ. How could a Republican ever support Obama on any issue without pissing off these lunatics?

Senator Chris Dodd thinks that things might be loosening up a bit on this front:

"I think, frankly, there are a number of Republicans who went along with the strategy of 'just say no' who were never really happy with it, but if it worked they would go along," Dodd said. "They saw it fail. And now they've had enough of it. and they really want to be involved in crafting things."

I was thinking a similar thing the other day. The most essential part of the GOP's "Just Say 'No' To Obama" strategy was defeating Obama on health care reform; and now that such a goal cannot be reached, my thinking was that a lot of Republicans in Congress might decide that the time has come to do their jobs. But the aforementioned results from the Harris poll have caused me to do some rethinking on that.

By the way, I really like this.