Thom Hartmann Blames Reagan for Starting Rightist 'Anti-American Crazies Who Hate Our Government'

The old Norm McDonald joke was “Germans love David Hasselhoff.” The liberal talk radio equivalent is “Thom Hartmann really hates Ronald Reagan.”

On Thursday afternoon’s show, Hartmann blamed Reagan for this whole Tea Party trend of “anti-American crazies who hate our government,” with that unpatriotic hatred somehow including veterans of every war, and George Washington, who “signed the first legislation that provided housing, food, medical care, and clothing to poor people.” Footnote, please?

THOM HARTMANN: Ronald Reagan came along and, in his first inaugural address, said the government is the problem, and ever since then there's been this small group of anti-American crazies who hate our government, our government that all these people over all these years, the people who fought in World War II; the people who fought in World War I; the people who fought in the Civil War, at least for the North; the people who fought in the Revolutionary War; the people who fought in the War of 1812; our government that they fought to keep, and many of them died.

Our government, according to these teabaggers, has become an evil thing, or was all along, actually. I mean, it was George Washington who signed the first legislation that provided housing, food, medical care, and clothing to poor people in Washington, D.C.

Hartmann summarized the shutdown as a Tea Party tantrum of hate: “They brought this government to its knees, and cost us $24 billion, for what? Because they don't want 46 million people who don't have health insurance to be able to get it? They brought this government to its knees because they object to the idea that people who have had, like my friend Tommy Christopher who had a heart attack and can't get health insurance, that they [say], 'Screw him, he shouldn't be able to get health insurance.' They really did this!”

Hartmann sounds just like one of my childhood friends, who tweaked me on Facebook: “What did the Republicans propose for health care? Other than to make people (like me) with chronic health problems feel they were being led to slaughter. Culling is the word. P.S. any organ donors out there?”