The Ancient Art of Tearing the Life of a Child Apart

Ezra Klein's response to the conservative blogosphere, which honed on and harrassed a 12-year-old and his family after the child publicly spoke about how SCHIP has helped his family:

This is the politics of hate. Screaming, sobbing, inchoate, hate. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to drive to the home of a Republican small business owner to see if he "really" needed that tax cut. It would never, not in a million years, occur to me to call his family and demand their personal information. It would never occur to me to interrogate his neighbors. It would never occur to me to his smear his children.

This is not politics. This is, in symbolism and emotion, a violent group ritual. It is savages tearing at the body of a captured enemy. It is the group reminding itself that the Other is always disingenuous, always evil, always lying, always pitiful and pathetic and grotesque. It is a bonding experience -- the collaborative nature of these hateful orgies proves that much -- in which the enemy is exposed as base and vile and then ripped apart by the community. In that way, it sustains itself, each attack preemptively justifying the next vicious assault, justifying the whole hateful edifice on which their politics rest.

Looks like leading Congressional Republicans could be joining in the group ritual, as Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans have posted a little Simpson's satire on the public tab to lampoon what they call "rental children":


The hateful length to which blind and unquestioned loyalty will send people is considerable.