McCain on health care criticism: 'Be respectful'

The reactionary behavior continued this week over passage of the most sweeping piece of legislation in decades, as lawmakers are getting incendiary and offensive messages and voicemails from their angry, to the point of irrational (or, perhaps, some protesters were irrational to begin with), constituents. Rep. Bart Stupak, for instance, an anti-abortion Democratic lawmaker who was key in getting the bill passed, received a voicemail with these comments:

Think about this. There are millions of people across the country who wish you ill, and all of those negative thoughts projected on you will materialize into something that is not very good for you.

Is the caller really talking about Karma here or some sort of mystical conjoining of the minds against a mutually hated individual? If so, that tells us all we need to know about the caller.

Here is content from two other calls from CNN's story:

"Stupak, you are a lowlife, baby-murdering scumbag, pile of steaming crap. You're a cowardly punk, Stupak, that's what you are. You and your family are scum," an unidentified caller said. "That's what you are, Stupak. You are a piece of crap."

"Go to hell, you piece of [expletive deleted]" another caller said.

And here's a video detailing some of the broken windows and other ugly incidents, including one disgraceful act by Rep. Steve King:




In a recent interview with CNN's John King, Sen. John McCain, while not villifying Sarah Palin's recent graphic that placed crosshairs over 20 House Democrats that "we" (McCain/Palin) carried in 2008 who voted for the health care reform bill, McCain did speak against over-the-top, and frankly, offensive and childish gestures by Steve King in front of health care protesters at the Capitol. Encouragingly, before John King even got a question out about Steve King's action, McCain said,

Uncalled for, of course that's uncalled for. Of course that's uncalled for, John. And we see, from the person who yelled, 'baby killer.' But I think that we've gotta urge everybody to be respectful.

While not agreeing with most of McCain's political stances, he has always proven to me that he has a rational and indepedent-thinking mind

Here's the interview: