Haters on the loose

Yesterday was the great Tea Bag Day so gleefully promoted by the Fox machine and lots of Republicans unhinged by Barack Obama's election (like Rick Perry, the apparently pro-secessionist governor of Texas.) Last night, when I reran Rachel Maddow's MSNBC report on this confusing, semi-national fandango, I used my computer's pause button over and over to jot down messages that tea bag participants were carrying or wearing. Here are some of those messages:

"Obama's a shoeshine boy"

(On a large photo of the president with an added mustache) "Barack H. Obama, the new face of Hitler"

"The American taxpayers are the Jews for Obama's ovens"

"Hey Big Bro, show us your real birth certificate"

"Stand idly by while some Kenyan tries to destroy America"

"Chairman Maobama"

(With a list of eight Dem members of Congress plus Hillary Clinton) "Hang 'em high"

"Speak for yourself, Obama. We are a Christian nation."

"Obama = Hitler"

No further comment. Oh wait--TEA is supposed to mean "Taxed Enough Already." But Obama wants to give 120 million families the biggest middle-class tax cut ever ($120 billion) and eliminate corporate tax havens in the Caribbean and beyond (where they store trillions of tax-free dollars,) So that just leaves the racist stuff. Now just pass the Tums please.