He's got serious competition from the likes of Bachmann, King and whatnot, but Smokey Joe is a serious contender for the title of "Dumbest Member of the House." What an idiot.

And what makes it even worse is that while Bachmann and King are powerless backbenchers who can do nothing but yell and scream and put on a good clown show, Barton is ranking member on Energy and Commerce. This is the top Republican on a key House committee. Frightening. (Of course, given the GOP has the equally empty-headed Mike Pence in the leadership, stupidity is not a barrier to power in the House caucus.)

Don't blame Joe. This is just the latest winger talking point/empty threat. The trolls are already using it.

So....ummm....what's he going to do if healthcare reform is a rousing success? Oh, I know he'll say it's a failure, just like Republicans have announced the stimulus as a failure - although experts who actually work in the fields of economics and finance have said that it probably averted a depression. But, I mean, beyond the knee-jerk obstructionism of today's Republican party, how are they going to substantiate their stubborn efforts to kill the plan if it turns out to be a success?

By the way, the sheer volume of the screeching by the Republicans indicates their awareness that the Democrats can pass healthcare reform without Republican input and in spite of their obstruction.

Holy turdball! Barton just shot the anti-reform movement in the foot. For all the bellyaching about how horrible "Obamacare" will be, there's this underlying assumption that it will be here forever. We're assured that even lousy government programs never go away and that ACORN will continue to steal elections forever. And so we're to imagine that Obama's death panels will be able to wipe the elderly off the map with impunity.

But now Barton's just exposed the truth: That if this program truly sucks and acts as a death sentence for anyone who makes the mistake of getting ill, it will be repealed almost immediately. And in its wake, we'd never see anything like it again. That's simply political reality. Dems need to get a plan that people actually like or it'll be far worse than if they got nothing at all. And now Barton has explicitly made that clear, which completely undermines conservative fear-mongering. This guy better get back on the "ACORN is stealing elections" meme immediately.

is that a towel I see on the floor in the middle of the ring?

I know what it means when the Red Sox start saying "wait til next year ! "

Corporate hypocorism

The far-right congressman from ExxonMobil...

Great idea Mr. Benen:
How about "Terms of endowment" for all our congress-critters?

Idiot Barton: "If they somehow manage to get the votes and get enough Democrats to walk the plank and commit suicide..."

He must be thinking about how unpopular Medicare is. And the VA. Even Medicaid. Certainly S-Chip.

He must also be thinking about how all other nations in the civilized world, all those nations with universal health care systems, are rushing to abandon their systems and go to an American-style mess. They especially want to increase the amount of their GDPs that they devote to health care, from less than 11 to over 16. Gotta keep up with those Yanks, right?

Then again, he might not be thinking at all.

This just means that the Democrats better pass a good reform bill, or it deserves to be repealed.

The repeal sounds good to me. I wish they would repeal all entitlement program passed from 1930 to the present.

Well, if passing health care reform is the GOP's path back to the majority in 2010, wouldn't that be the best possible outcome for them? So why are they fighting it so hard?

The anti-reformers are protesting a little too much. If they had the numbers on their side, they wouldn't be wasting so much energy. The polls blipped one way and will blip back again. The entire opposition seems to be composed of the 50,000 employees the insurance industry sent out to the townhalls (according to the Wall Street Journal,) plus the reliable far-right nutcases, plus a few addle-pated old timers. If Congress passes a decent bill, everybody on earth will have ten months or more to find out what is in it and what the benefits are, in time for the next election. Ten months means over three complete emotional turnarounds for the electorate. So they'll be zooming off on another completely different issue. There is no downside for the Democrats on this, except maybe for a few extremely nutty districts.

The repeal sounds good to me. I wish they would repeal all entitlement program passed from 1930 to the present.

Gosh, wouldn't that be fantastic! Old people would be homeless and begging on the streets where they belong without Social Security, and they wouldn't even live that long between exposure to the elements and not having any Medicare.

Even better, going without food stamps and school lunch programs would create an underclass of malnourished children who would never grow up to burden our state colleges. Instead we could put them out in the fields picking crops and send all them danged illegals back home!

Of course without the FDIC right now we'd all be rooting around for turnips because the bank failures would have plunged the country into a second Great Depression. But it would totally be worth it not to have my tax dollars going to scum who don't deserve it!

/you

You are a braindead idiot.

AND IT WILL WORK BECAUSE THE FUCKING COWARDS AREN'T STARTING THE BILL UNTIL 2013.

They're totally marginalized and powerless, and they know it. They sound like the kid (OK, Bugs Bunny) walking home from a beating muttering to himself about how "I'm gonna go get my bruddah, and DEN you'll catch it!"

Tell me another one, Joe. Those guys aren't going anywhere. Heck, they'd have to get more popular for people to hate them.

"I wish they would repeal all entitlement program passed from 1930 to the present."

The millions of the newly disentitled would surely rally around them in gratitude. Sounds like you're advocating a suicide pact there, citizen.

Again: "Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), the ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce committee," WTF is he doing as the ranking member? We do not have to accept the seniority system. Democrats won in 2008, they should make their own the ranking members where they want to.

Gosh, wouldn't that be fantastic! Old people would be homeless and begging on the streets where they belong without Social Security, and they wouldn't even live that long between exposure to the elements and not having any Medicare.

Or, those old people could receive help and care from their families, as old people have received for generations and generations - and still do today in most cultures.

FYI: the FDIC is not an entitlement program.

Or, those old people could receive help and care from their families, as old people have received for generations and generations - and still do today in most cultures.

In "most cultures" those "old people" have access to socialized benefits outstripping those offered in the U.S. Secondly, senior citizens in the U.S. already receive help from their families and many of them still struggle financially. Dipshit.

But, in those unfortunate countries that have little or no social safety net, it is not uncommon to see old people on the streets homeless or begging.

FYI: the FDIC is not an entitlement program.

In essence, that's EXACTLY what it is. It is a socialized insurance program in which money is paid into a fund to protect depositors in the case of a bank failure -- just like socialized health care protects one's resources by collecting taxes and spreading out the risk.

I brought it up because it was part of the many necessary and crucial social safety net programs instituted by Roosevelt, and like Social Security it's value is self-evident and empirically provable.

Toddle along now.

Unless Barton also has a plan to elect a Republican president in 2010 -- two years ahead of the next presidential election -- this vow won't amount to much no matter how many seats the GOP gains.

Silly Democrat! Obviously the grim specter of universal health care will result in veto-proof GOP majorities in both houses.