When Republican Extremists Get Called On Their Bull They Resort To Name Calling-- Ingraham Calls McCain Fat And Burr Goes All Racist On The President

Burr claps for his kind of leader

If you missed The View today you're probably not aware of how Ann Coulter-wanna be Laura Ingraham has been attacking Meghan McCain for daring to discuss the Republican Party's drift into the kind of extremism that has turned off the vast majority of the American people-- including a majority of Republicans. Think Progress is keeping all non-View folks up to date on the spat but the short version is that Ingraham attacked McCain as "plus-sized" and McCain, as well as other conservative women, were offended that Ingraham decided to resort to childish name-calling instead of debating on the merits of the argument. McCain:

"What do young women think when I speak my mind about politics and I want to have a political discussion about the ideological future of the Republican party, and the answer is, “She’s fat, she shouldn’t have an opinion. What kind of message are we sending young women? … It infuriates me. I’m a political writer on a blog, and all of a sudden I’m too fat to write?"

Ingraham has a different perspective on what's happening. If you want to watch it, here's a YouTube:



Meanwhile, down in North Carolina, embattled incumbent obstructionist, Richard Burr-- who has opposed every single thing President Obama has tried to accomplish since taking office-- thinks his state is still in Jesse Helms mode. Apparently he hasn't figured out that Helms style virulent racism is out in the Tar Heel State. Since Burr was first elected in 2004, beating Erskine Bowles 52-47%, a lot has changed in North Carolina. On the same day that Burr was elected to the Senate with 1,791,450 votes, Democrat Mike Easley was re-elected governor with 1,939,154 votes (56%). Four month ago North Carolina went to the polls again and the changes became very manifest-- for everyone but Richard Burr. Governor Easley was didn't run again, was replaced by Democrat Bev Perdue-- with 400,000 more votes than Burr ever got in an election. Worse yet, Burr's senior colleague, Liddy Dole, was defeated by Kay Hagan 2,225,961 (53%)- 1,867,269 (44%). In the previously red 8th CD, progressive Democratic school teacher Larry Kissell beat entrenched conservative incumbent Robin Hayes by a startling 10% and the only other incumbents of either party to garner under 60% were the state's two most extreme right-wingers, Patrick McHenry and Virginia Foxx (who was elected to replace Burr when he ran for the Senate). Another of Burr's closest allies, Rep. Charles Taylor, had been defeated for re-election in 2006. The North Carolina congressional delegation, which favored Republicans 7-6 when Burr was elected, now the delegation favors Democrats 8-5. And the capper, something even Burr shouldn't have missed, was when North Carolina awarded Barack Obama its 15 electoral votes after he beat McCain 2,123,390- 2,109,698.

So it was shocking toward when Burr went on a rampage of coded racism against the president today.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr wouldn't mind watching basketball with Barack Obama. The Winston-Salem Republican was recently on the Charlotte sports talk show Primetime with the Packman. Repeating a question from the Democratic primary last year, host Mark Packer asked whether Burr would rather have dinner with Hillary Clinton or Obama.

"Hillary Clinton in a heartbeat," Burr said. "I've had an opportunity in the last week to have dinner with Barack Obama. I passed on that one."

Obama held a bipartisan "timeout dinner" at the White House with about 180 guests from Congress and his Cabinet, as well as staffers and spouses. Burr said the president is a "straight-up guy," a "tremendous athlete" and "a very disciplined individual," but he disagrees with him on the issues.

Yesterday Pew released polling data that shows that even Republican voters oppose the GOP strategy of Obstructionism. North Carolina voters elected a majority of Democrats to the House, a Democratic senator and a Democratic governor because they want a new approach the problems that have been acerbated while Bush-- and Burr-- were running the show. Something tells me that Burr's non-stop obstructionism is going to end his political career in 2010-- especially now that the North Carolina Democratic Party isn't going to throw the chance to win away by nominating Heath Shuler, a Republican-in-Democratic clothing.