Violence? I’m Shocked!

(photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images. Members of Congress hold up signs from the second floor of the Capitol that read “Kill The Bill” on Capitol Hill on March 21, 2010 in Washington, DC. Later today the House is scheduled to vote on Health Care Legislation that has divided both sides of Congress.)

What’s all this surprise and consternation among Republican lawmakers about threats and actual incidents of violence upon passage of health care reform?

I understand it’s part of a phrase, but really, there’s some troubling “group think” going on for a U.S. Representative not to even consider the intelligence of brandishing such a sign. Beyond that, these Congressmen not only adopted this inflammatory slogan of the right-wing fringe demonstrators, but egged them on with it from the Capitol as the final debate was coming to a climax.