Paul Broun: C*nt of the Day

Witnesses tell TPM that Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA) laughed when an elderly man at his town hall meeting this week asked "Who's gonna shoot Obama?"

Now I ain't gonna go crazy and take this literally. I don't believe Broun would really laugh if the assassination of the President was being discussed in all seriousness (at least I'd sure the f*ck hope not). But that ain't the point. Just as Joe "You Lie" Wilson helped lower the bar by smack talking the Commander-in Chief, Broun has helped ratchet it down further by failing to bring one of his own nutjobs to heel. He didn't even politely slap down said nutjob like McCain did at his campaign townhall when that crazed witch started yammering about Obama being a Muslim. Why not? Because that's the last thing a conservative pol would do these days. Good manners and taking responsibility are a thing of the distant past.

If Broun had the sense of right and wrong of an average five-year-old, he would have apologized and made a big deal of disassociating himself from this lunatic immediately. But that would be sooo '08... Now conservatives like Broun actively court lunatics and live in mortal fear of being denounced as p*ssies by the teabagger cultural revolution. The lunatics are the base. And that's what's so sick and dangerous.

I'm not saying you could just draw a straight line of cause-and-effect between Joe Wilson and Jared Loughner - or Paul Broun and whatever horrible future event may lay in store - but you certainly could say that the roots of violent deeds begin in violent talk. And Broun's shameless abdication from common decency is just one more push.