Boehner is Hitler!

Leave it to our wacky 9th Congressional District Rep Steve Cohen to embarrass left Tennessee again:

“They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels," Cohen said. "You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing

Cohen has long history of saying outlandish things to further a meme. He's sort of like Alan Grayson without the girth and that s**teating grin. Just last week he announced locally that he was applying for conceal-carry permit due to the Tucson shooting (he already has a gun) and some crazy encounter in a local supermarket involving a constituent talking about Jesse Ventura. Both of these moves are almost surely an attempt to keep the hate narrative alive to take away from the GOP's legitimate debate about health care--the debate most of us never got. Good Lord, it's not like Memphis just suddenly became dangerous last week.

This is interesting:

Cohen made his comments late last night, but they have attracted no attention because his speech was made to a virtually empty House chamber with no reporters around to watch.

Well yeah, he didn't need any actual congressional members present because the point was to get ABC or the other mainstream alphabets to pick it up. And they did. So sorry to disagree Cap'n (giving kudos for coverage) but the theory here is quite likely similar to a lonely puppy tearing up the furniture for attention--any attention is better than none. Cohen must actually believe it'll work.

SHAMELESS HACK ATTACK 1/19/11

Cohen is just another actor in this Pelosi blitzkrieg offensive leveled against the new GOP sheriff in the House. Sheila Jackson Lee not only said repealing Obamacare was unconstitutional, she then appeared on Cavuto's show with a cheesy photo backdrop of a sick woman whom she said could die without Obamacare. Meanwhile smiley was on the Maddow show trying to explain that the reason the Dems got shellacked had nothing to do with health care.

Really, there's nothing new to see here. The Dems have long been the part of ends justify means and many have no problem going gutter if the situation calls for it. They know the media will help. So it will get worse. Boehner is starting off just fine though, taking a real low key attitude. He knows that responding in kind is just what they want. Paul Ryan knows how to respond in-kind, and has a few charts and props of his own.