Thousands of Right-Wingers Rally at Capitol to Hear Lies About Health Care Reform, Courtesy of Bachmann and GOP Leaders

Thousands of right-wingers rallied yesterday on the lawn on the U.S. Capitol building to hear a parade of Republican lawmakers warn them of an alleged threat to their freedom embedded in the secret channels of the health care reform bill unveiled last week by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Lawmakers expect to vote on the bill Saturday.

Congressional star power was provided on the podium by the likes of Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who called for the rally from the hallowed platform of Sean Hannity's Fox News program.

Other big names on the Capitol podium included House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio; Rep. Joe "You Lie" Wilson, R-S.C. (who got a huge ovation from the crowd), and House Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., who promised that he was doing all he could to ensure that "not one Republican" votes for the health care reform bill.

Actors Jon Voight and John Deszo Ratzenberger (the guy who played Cliff on Cheers) provided the glamour quotient.

Had you witnessed the 9-12/Tea Party march on Washington in September, you would be forgiven for thinking of today's rally as same stuff, different day. Except it wasn't quite.

Sure, the yellow Gasdsen flags -- the standards bearing the image of a coiled snake and the words "Don't Tread on Me" -- were everywhere, as were the crazy conspiracy-theory signs.

Just like the 9-12 march, this was a white people's rally, most of them appearing to be over the age of 40. And the same triumverate of forces -- Fox News, with the astroturfing groups Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks -- were involved with the rally, which was promoted heavily by Fox News personalities and the Web site of Americans for Prosperity, as well as via the AFP e-mail network.

FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe addressed today's crowd, just as he did at the 9-12 march, which FreedomWorks organized.

And while yesterday's crowd was far smaller than that of the 9-12 march, it was impressive in size for a weekday. People did indeed come from all over the country -- many on American for Prosperity buses, but many on their own.

By my guesstimate, organizers drew 5,000 enthusiastic Tea Partiers -- not bad for a Thursday afternoon.

A seemingly endless parade of speakers seemed to encompass virtually the whole of the House GOP caucus.

What really set this event apart from all others is that the long list of Republican lawmakers assembled before the crowd did so as part of a day's work in Congress on the steps of U.S. Capitol, cheerfully facing a barrage of signs that decried Pelosi and President Barack Obama as socialists, and the president as a usurper and transgressor of the Constitution.

Sure, you've heard that that story before, even bits and pieces of it out of the mouths of individual members of Congress. And, yes, U.S. senators and representatives have been present before on podiums where the Obama-as-fascist-socialist-Marxist-Muslim-foreigner story revealed itself in the chants and signage of protesters. But here was the leader of the House Republicans, addressing just such a crowd as part of his day job, leading perhaps 20 members of Congress to join that fray.

Boehner Looks On

Minority Leader Boehner's remarks were unremarkable but for the fact that, holding up a copy of the U.S. Constitution, he purported to be quoting from its Preamble while actually reading the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence.

More notable is the fact Boehner's misstep followed a sneering speech by radio talk-show host Mark Levin (introduced as a "great one," by Bachmann), who has built a cottage industry of representing Obama as a dictator who has come to overturn the American Revolution.

Levin is also famously misogynist when it comes to liberal women, referring to the secretary of state as "her thighness", and making references to the body of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.