Patrick Filler

Freakout, Indeed

After Scott Brown’s won Massachusetts special senate election in January, Republicans reacted as though they had defeated Health Care Reform once-and-for-all. Jonathan Chait, however, predicted that Health Care Reform was not dead — and that opponents of the billwould not react kindly to the its ultimate passage:

You can imagine how this feels to conservatives. They’ve already run off the field, sprayed themselves with champagne and taunted the losing team’s fans. And now the other team is saying the game is still on and they have a good chance to win. There may be nothing wrong at all with the process, but it’s certainly going to feel like some kind of crime to the right-wing. The Democrats may not win, but I’m pretty sure they’re going to try. The conservative freakout is going to be something to behold.

Despite his prescience on the bill and the freakout to follow, I doubt he would have predicted just how nasty things would get. The passage of the Health Care Reform Bill has inspired some truly insane and hatefulreactions, leading law enforcement to offer at least 10 members of congress additional security.

Did I fall asleep or something? What freakin’ decade is this?

(link via Daring Fireball)