The 10 Most Outrageous Right-Wing Freakouts Over the Health Care Bill

The Monday after Congress passed historic health care legislation was a dark day for the right wing. Wouldn’t you be upset if you were doomed to live in a communist dystopia? Is there even a point in living once Nancy Pelosi kills every baby in America and your grandmother?

And by "upset," we mean certifiably insane. Here are the 10 most awesomely overwrought right-wing freakouts spurred by the passage of a bill that promises to extend coverage to tens of millions of the uninsured and curb some of the most inhumane abuses of the insurance industry.

1. Last week, Rush Limbaugh swore he would move to Costa Rica if health reform passed. Instead, he heroically decided to stay behind and fight for freedom, by telling his listeners they're in a death match with Hitler. “America is hanging by a thread. So we have to see what we can do with a thread. At the end of the day, our freedom has been assaulted. This is the kind of change that people did not think they were going to get when they voted for Barack Obama. Freedom must win the day." 

Limbaugh goes on to slam Rep. Bart Stupak, whose decision to vote yes on the bill after squeezing an anti-abortion executive order from Obama helped Dems clinch the needed votes. "Stupak is no different than Neville Chamberlain, who came back with that little letter from Hitler: 'Oh, yeah, Hitler says no war between his country and ours.'"

Limbaugh followed up his outrageously offensive (but by this point run-of-the-mill) comparison of Obama to Hitler by mourning our democracy. It no longer exists, Limbaugh concluded, identifying the cause of its demise: our democratically elected Congress and president, of course. "They won because they held Congress and the presidency, and therein lies the lesson: We need to defeat these bastards. We need to wipe them out. We need to chase them out of town."

History is sure to smile on his selfless stand.

2. Glenn Beck, who warns that we're on the cusp of a socialist/fascist takeover on a daily basis, had to reach to do justice to the drama of the occasion. He didn't disappoint, wielding his vast historical knowledge to (unfavorably) compare the vote to the Gettysburg Address, Iwo Jima and the moon landing, Civil Rights and the heroism of the 9/11 first responders, before landing on a more appropriate set of analogies: the attack on Pearl Harbor; the St. Valentines massacre ("when the mob stepped in and cleaned things up!"); Chamberlain's meeting with Hitler; AND THE HINDENBURG!!!! "You see, being historic isn’t always a good thing," he somberly concluded.

3. Shock Jock Neal Boortz took to Twitter to make an even more wildly offensive comparison. “Nancy Pelosi will be grinning and laughing this afternoon. Today will do more damage than 9/11.” Think the people who sometimes pose as responsible lawmakers will denounce Boortz’ (and Beck's) outrageous exploitation of 9/11? No, because they're too busy doing stuff like this.

4. Anti-abortion terrorist Randall Terry is using his pull with the Pope to get Nancy Pelosi excommunicated, because helping pass a bill that will extend health care to more than 30 million uninsured Americans does not obviate her role in unleashing a vast fetus Armageddon. Terry and some other crazy people held a one-minute protest on the outskirts of St. Peter's Square outside the Vatican, bearing signs asking for Pelosi to be denied communion and excommunicated. 

5. Operation Rescue’s Troy Newman channeled Glenn Beck and Boortz, comparing the bill to the moon landing, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Gulf War (he thinks it's not like those things), and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the Clarence Thomas hearings, Pearl Harbor, and, of course 9/11 (he thinks it is like those things).