Rivers Pitt : this week's wrap-up on health care, Gates-gate, birthers, & more

[MBS]

http://www.truthout.org/080109A?n

It has been a crazy week.

Some excerpt from William Rivers Pitt:

. . Henry Waxman tried to keep the "public option" component of the package together, but wound up getting sold down the river by a bunch of Blue Cross Blue Shield Blue Dog Democrats who could give lessons to the GOP minority on how to thwart a presidential agenda.. .
For those in need of their daily recommended allowance of shrieking bat-poop insanity, look no further than the so-called "Birther" conspiracy currently roiling the ranks of the GOP. . . . The actual birth certificate was produced ages ago, Hawaii proudly proclaimed itself the birthplace of the president, and the issue has been entirely settled in the minds of all but a few, who at their core simply cannot accept that a black man with an Arabic name sleeps in the White House.. . . .
But here's the funny part. Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, right-wing bombthrower Ann Coulter and GOP Chairman Michael Steele - three people who have repeatedly set the standard for Deranged Things Actually Said In Public - have been working overtime to kill the Birther debate because they think it's stupid. They think it's stupid. Memo to the Far Right: when you've lost the support of people like O'Reilly, Coulter and Steele, you have to step back and wonder just how far from the pack you've strayed.

Elsewhere on the goofball spectrum, a couple of prominent right-wingers accused President Obama and the Democrats of being racists. Yes, they actually did. Fox News commentator Glenn Beck called Obama a racist for coming down on the side of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. during the recent flap over his arrest. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) blasted Senate Democrats for - get this - using Sonya Sotomayor's race to divide the American people. Democrats, according to Cornyn, have been "giving cover to groups and individuals to nurture racial grievances for political advantage."

Yeah, let's move on. There are just no words.

More at the url, above.