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CNN's John Roberts challenged GOP pollster Frank Luntz for his role in using "charged language" and fomenting right-wing anger at health care reform.

Heather: This was a typical softball interview from John Roberts where he didn't hit Luntz the way I would have if given the chance to ask him how he feels about selling his soul for a buck and giving the Republicans their talking points on the health care debate. That said, I think Roberts is the first person I've seen in the MSM to actually ask the man if he should feel any responsibility for whipping up the anger at these town halls. You would never see that question asked of Luntz over at ClusterFox that he loves to call home. It's a question that should be asked of him with some real follow up more often.

ROBERTS: From town halls to tea parties, a lot of people across the country are really ticked off. Last week in our special series "Mad as Hell," we looked at the sources and potential solutions for all of that national anger.

Our next guest has advised the Republican Party and other clients on hot-button issues like health care, issues that so many Americans are riled up about. Frank Luntz is a pollster, communications expert and author of the new book, "What Americans Really Want, Really."

Frank joins us now with some new insight on the outrage. Insight on the outrage. Good play on words there. So people in America, are they really angrier than they ever have been?

LUNTZ: They are, 72 percent of Americans define themselves - we took a survey - of 6,400 people. That's five times the typical CNN media poll. Seventy- two percent of Americans are mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore.

ROBERTS: Seventy-two percent.

LUNTZ: And they're mad at politics because they think there's no accountability in Washington. They're mad at business because they think that their employers don't respect them. And they're mad at Hollywood for the coarseness of the culture. So you've got all three things going on at the same time, and they don't find a solution to it.

ROBERTS: Let me quote from your book here because you say, "It's not necessarily what's so important is not necessarily that Americans are mad as hell. What matters more is that they're not going to take it anymore. Americans have hit a tipping point with Washington, and moreover, its political parties."

So we're at this tipping point. What does that mean for the country? You gave us kind of the background of what people are mad at. Why are they add at all of this, and what is this tipping point?

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From Washington Journal Sunday Sept. 20, 2009.

Kevin Baker, Harper’s Magazine & Stephen Moore, Wall Street Journal, discussed the Obama Presidency so far, and news of the week.

After hearing from a caller that accuses Harper's Kevin Baker of being insulting to the protesters by calling them "tea baggers" and astroturf and calling him "wimpy" to boot, Baker explains that he isn't the one that came up with that term. Baker says he'd be happy to go head to head with those protesting and attend some of the protests himself- as long as none of them bring their automatic weapons.

Moore then goes on to defend the protesters by blaming President Obama for polarizing the country. Baker says nothing justifies showing up with automatic weapons and with signs saying that the Tree of Liberty needs to be watered with blood and notes how polarizing that is.

Then Moore adds this.

Moore: I was out there. I didn't see anybody with... (crosstalk) I didn't see any... with all due respect; in all the events I've been to I've never seen anybody with a swastika. I've never seen anybody with a gun and these people are not anti-American.

Moderator: We've got to wrap it up there...

Baker: I've seen them repeatedly.

Hey Stephen, just because you didn't see it personally- which I don't believe for one minute about the swastikas- doesn't mean it's didn't happen. I don't know who Moore thinks he's kidding but I wish the time hadn't run out on the segment so Baker could have had a shot at rebutting him after making that ridiculous statement. There is not a chance in hell he doesn't know full well that people brought both.

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Peggy Noonan with a double dose of her typical snobbery on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Noonan first calls the President "boorish" for doing his "Full Ginsburg" on the Sunday shows and for all the town hall meetings he's had. Then she goes on to excuse the racism at the tea bag parties and town hall protests.

Stephanopoulos: Peggy one of the arguments the White House makes is they're dealing with a very different media environment than any other President in the past has ever had to deal with. There's such a fracture in media environment that even someone like Ronald Reagan, who you worked for would have to do more of what you're seeing the President do in this environment.

Noonan: Oh I don't know. I think the President is doing what he's doing now, being all over today and the past few weeks--he's doing it because... he can, because people do what they know how to do.

Stephanopoulos: Because no one is going to turn him down.

Noonan: This is his way. Because everybody will say yes. I don't think it's about the media environment but I do think the media environment allows a modern leader to be something subtly damaging and that is boorish. They get their face in your face every day all the time. It's boorish and it makes people not lean towards you, but lean away from you, no matter what the merits of the issue and the merits of this issue are not such great merits.

[.....]

You know what I think. When I look at this I step back a little bit and I think there is a lot of anger now. Mrs. Pelosi had a point. Things get high. It's always good to cool things down, but essentially what we have here is a very new president. He's only been here for ten months. He is a young man. He didn't have deep, long, profound experience. He is attempting right now to change, what it is, seventeen, eighteen percent of the GNP of the United States of America, changing how it works, health care.

This is problematic on the face of it. People will argue about that, but on top of that people are thinking about, in America the economy, unemployment, war and peace, two wars that are going. This president who is new and young comes along and says "Oh, that's not the issue. The issue is health care". It seems not like a program but a non sequitur and it angers people.

Inland at DailyKOS reminds of us what the definition of a boor is and tries to figure out what Noonan may have been implying by using the term.

boor definition boor (bo̵or)

noun

1. Archaic a peasant or farm worker

2. a rude, awkward, or ill-mannered person

Inland also points to this post at Firedoglake by Blue Texan with more of Noonan's hackery on the town hall protesters. Peggy Noonan: Health Care Protests Haven’t “Gotten Out of Hand”, Just “Plenty of Booing”:

Nooners surveys the mob scenes, the hangings in effigy, the assaults, the unhinged rhetoric -- and blames it all on Obama.

All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They [the White House and Democrats] are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn’t be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office. You really, if you’re president, can’t call an individual American stupid, if for no other reason than that you’re too big. You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan “extremists” and “right wing,” or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They’re citizens. They’re concerned. They deserve respect.

Shorter Noonan: if the Democrats would stop dressing like slutty socialists, they wouldn't get raped.

h/t to Bob Cesca who also noted..

Adding... Peggy Noonan was at the top of her passive aggressive condescending game. Bravo. Referring to the president as "boorish" in her trademark insufferable hushed tone doesn't make her "graceful" or "civil" -- it just makes her look ridiculous, since she clearly doesn't know what "boorish" means.

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Dick Morris once again lives up to his name on Fox News. Somehow in Morris' pea brain, Louise Slaughter not wanting to put up with Birchers and birthers and tea baggers at these town halls where the astroturfers have gotten the wingnuts whipped up in to a frenzy is just like the "old Southern politician" who doesn't want to deal with the African Americans in his district. Yeah... that's just the same Dick. How come I didn't make that connection after hearing what she said? Project much?

He makes sure he gets in some more death panel, the government is going to kill grandma fear mongering before it's over as well. Republicans... now the great defenders of Medicare. That's rich.

MACCALLUM: Well, not every member of Congress thinks that facing down voters at town halls as part of their job creation -- job description, I should say. Democratic congresswoman Louise Slaughter is one of those. Listen to what Louise had to say.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

REP. LOUISE SLAUGHTER (D), NEW YORK: I'm not doing town meetings. I'm -- I'm not going to give those people a forum. I went through it with the Clinton health care bill, with the John Birch Society, where we had to have police around and people were hysterically crying. I'm not -- and frankly, to tell you the truth, Ron, my own dignity and the dignity of the office I hold is important to me. And I know what that is. It's not a spontaneous uprising of my constituents. I've got the best relationship with my constituents anybody could ever even imagine.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MACCALLUM: All right, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, I should say. Dick Morris joins me now. He's the author of the book "Catastrophe." Dick, what do you make of that? She's saying, you know, Look, I have a great relationship with my constituents. It's beneath the dignity of the congresswoman, she says, and the dignity of her office to subject herself to the folks like we just saw in Waco, Texas, who have something to say.

DICK MORRIS, DICKMORRIS.COM: She reminds me very much of the old Southern politicians, who were racists, who used to say, Oh, I have a great relationship with people in my district, the black people in my district. And they didn't call them black. And if only the outside agitators would leave them alone, I'd have such great relationship with them.

The point is that -- that the -- Ms. Slaughter's constituents want to speak to her. And how else are they going to do it? This bill is going to go through the House without debate, probably be everybody'll be given two minutes to debate the bill. It'll probably pass in a week's time. The committees didn't hold hearings on it. There have been no public hearings on the issue. And then they're probably going to try to jam it through the Senate not only without debate but without even permitting debate by getting it through on a reconciliation with 50 votes.

So how are people supposed to speak out?

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So it turns out that Contessa Brewer had good reason to see a connection between the rabidly hateful rhetoric spewed by the likes of Pastor Steven Anderson and the angry, gun-toting protesters turning out for presidential events: One of the most prominent of these, an African-American man named "Chris", is in fact a member of Pastor Anderson's congregation.

"Chris" was on Alex Jones' "Prison Planet" radio show late last week and discussed how "my pastor was beaten up" at a Border Patrol checkpoint.

Yes, that pastor is indeed Steven Anderson, who was arrested in April by the Border Patrol for being uncooperative at a patrol checkpoint. Anderson attempted to make himself something of a national martyr to the conspiracists out there by posting a video to YouTube about it that quickly went viral.

Jones took note of the Anderson connection:

Jones: Now I'm starting to get a clearer picture. You go to Pastor Anderson's church, I see.

Chris: Yeah, yes I do. Proudly. I think it's the best church in the world.

The funny thing about these gun-toting protesters is that they like to portray themselves as being simple, honest defenders of their gun rights when they show up for public events, especially those featuring the president, packing heat publicly.

They adamantly deny that they're bringing their guns to intimidate their fellow citizens from speaking out with a contrary view. But this is beyond disingenuous; it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the vast majority of the people who attend a public debate will perceive someone with a gun as someone they should fear -- particularly if they have an opposing view. Most people will see someone with a gun at an event that does not deal with guns as a potential threat. And you can't tell me that most of these gun-toters are not perfectly aware of the intimidation factor they carry with them and are not in fact packing heat for just that reason.

Moreover, these gun-toters want to assure us they pose no threat whatsoever to either the president or his supporters by bringing these guns. They're just ordinary citizens standing up for their rights, right? The Secret Service need have no fear about their motives.

But then we find out that at least one of them ardently admires a pastor who preaches how much he hates Obama and wishes him dead, in order "to save this country."

And we're supposed to tell these "innocent" gun nuts from the people who might actually aim their weapons at the president how?

[H/t to reader jefro3000.]

From The Colbert Report:

Barney Frank has no interest in arguing with a dining room table, but he can't stifle the voice of American furniture on Stephen's watch.

From The Daily Show:

Barney Frank confronts a Nazi name-calling protester at a health care reform town hall meeting.

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Bill O'Reilly did an interesting thing last night when he reran that footage of Barney Frank castigating that woman carrying an Obama-as-Hitler sign at his town-hall meeting on health care: He completely omitted the fact that the woman who Frank was castigating was in fact a member of the far-right Lyndon Larouche cult.

All O'Reilly could muster was to mention that the woman was "a political activist." But that's like calling a Great White Shark a fish.

No, right-wingers like O'Reilly have been eagerly airbrushing out the existence of right-wing extremists from their worldview for some time now, embodied by their reaction to that DHS bulletin. But it's getting harder and harder to do all the time now.

Because, as we've noted, the far-right extremists are bubbling up everywhere in supposedly mainstream conservative circles these days -- particularly at the tea parties and their associated health-care protests.

Most recently, it turns out that the guys who brought those guns to a health-care forum in Arizona in fact were longtime members of the old Arizona Vipers Militia. These were characters who, prior to their arrests in 1996, had stockpiled close to 2,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and conducted field training exercises, practiced bomb-making, and trained with illegal automatic weapons.

Now, all the Fox talkers have been in heavy denial about extremists showing up for their tea-party protests, even making a regular joke out of it by asking the protesters they have on their show if they're Klan members and the like.

But it's becoming clearer all the time that, while not everyone at these events is an extremist, the percentages of them keep going up and up. And with them, so does the threat to public safety.

From LasVegasNOW.com

-- the health care debate gets ugly in Las Vegas when a woman shouts "Heil Hitler" to an Israeli Jew who supports health care reform.

Oh, isn't this special? The woman who was screaming "Heil Hitler" to a Jewish man at a Nevada Town hall apparently isn't camera shy, and says she's a good Christian woman. This was filmed just before her incredibly ugly outburst. Hey lady, who would Jesus shout down at a town hall meeting and mock after you deeply insulted them? Just wondering.

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Don't ever ask Barney Frank a question if you don't want to know exactly how he feels about something. From Larry King Live, Frank is asked by a woman waving an Obama as Hitler picture at a town hall meeting why he is supporting his "Nazi policy" on health care. Frank didn't mince any words in responding.

Frank: When you ask me that question I'm going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question. On what planet do you spend most of your time?

[....]

You want me to answer the question? Yes. As you stand there with a picture of the President defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.

Larry asks Howard Dean what he thinks about what he just watched. As Dean points out, this has nothing to do with health care reform and "this kind of anger politics has been going on for thirty years".

h/t PoliticsNewsPolitics

From The Daily Show:

Obama needs to stay on message with health care reform like the Bush administration did when they sold Americans the Iraq war.

(video courtesy of Think Progress)

CNN's Don Lemon interviewed two astroturf town hall protesters in Atlanta Monday, and when one of them claimed that no "real Americans" spoke at Obama's town hall meetings, Don shut him down instantly -- and didn't let up:

Lemon:...At least the president is trying to reform health care, so where did the outrage suddenly come from?

Hardage: Don, this is the second town hall he's done in the last week that I actually saw real Americans get up and ask questions, it wasn't a pre-selected group or a -

Lemon: Hang on, before you do that - Real Americans - that's another term that sets people off. We're ALL real Americans, everybody.

Hardage: Anybody can get in, anybody can ask questions, you've seen a completely different tenor in the town hall he held on Tuesday and today than townhalls we've been seeing so far in this debate. That's what I mean by real Americans.

Lemon: You know what, that whole real Americans thing, can we lose that real Americans? Because everybody in the country who is a citizen is a real American. We're all real Americans and that's part of the issue that really sets people off and divides people, so let's get rid of that "real American." I'm a real American, you're a real American, conservative, liberals, independents, we're all real Americans."

How refreshing to see on a corporate news channel.

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Sean Hannity was evidently distraught about Logan's post last Thursday about the teabagging Glenn Beck fan Katy Abram, who showed up at Arlen Specter's health-care town hall to spout Glenn Beckian nonsense. Logan remarked:

Granted, Abram isn't a professional pundit, but when questioned it became clear that she is the poster child for the entire undereducated, under-informed mob that make up the right wing town hall protesters.

Hannity gulps at this:

Hannity: Lovely. I guess the tone in Washington has really changed.

Of course, it hasn't. It hasn't because Sean Hannity and his Fox compatriots -- particularly Beck, who has even characterized President Obama as an anti-white racist -- as well as the Limbaugh-Coulter sector have seen to that.

But of course, on Planet Wingnuttia, it's been the liberals who are mean and nasty:

Hannity: Now what do you make of -- now we've watched all these politicians attacked. We've seen how Gov. Palin was treated, we saw how George W. Bush was treated. This is the first time, though, American citizens are being attacked by a party. Are you part of a mob? Are you a political terrorist? Do you like Tim McVeigh? Uh, any sympathies toward the Nazi Party?

Abram: No! [giggles]

Hannity: No racist views in your life?

Abram: No.

Hannity: No. What do you think when prominent Democrats have been making these charges?

Abram: I think it's ridiculous. I have heard Nancy Pelosi say, you know, we're a mob, swastikas, and all that stuff. I'm sorry. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I take care of my kids. I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. And you've got these people that are in charge of the country calling the people of this country ... awful names. Awful names! I mean, my original question to Arlen Specter was going to be, "I want you to denounce what Nancy Pelosi has said about the people of this country. It's ridiculous! It's ridiculous!

Yep, that's what we mean when we say "undereducated and under-informed." Pelosi didn't "call the people of this country" Nazis; she called out the morons who bring signs with swastikas -- comparing Obama to Hitler, as has been done frequently by prominent figures on the right in recent weeks, from Beck to Limbaugh. You know, awful names!

Of course, you can go back and look at what she said on Donnell's show for more evidence of this kind of blithering idiocy:

...You know, yeah, I mean, there are programs in place that the founders did not want to have here. I know there are people out there that can't afford health insurance, that can't afford a lot of different things, and, you know, with the founders, they thought and hoped that the goodness of the people would allow the people to take care of those who are doing without. And I know that may seem naive in today's, you know, world...

Ouch. My head hurts. Another wingnut who has read Glenn Beck but hasn't read Thomas Paine.

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