Oh, good.  Demonstrating outside the Capitol, more than a few Tea Party protesters thought that “nigger!” and “faggot!” would help convince onlookers of the rightousness of their anger.  No kidding.

Demonstrators outside the U.S. Capitol, angry over the proposed health care bill, shouted “nigger” Saturday at U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia congressman and civil rights icon who was nearly beaten to death during an Alabama march in the 1960s.

Protesters also shouted obscenities at other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, spat on at least one black lawmaker and confronted an openly gay congressman with taunts.

The response of the Tea Party bed fellows?  That Lewis and Frank and other recipients of the hate-speech should apologize to the haters!

Representative Devin Nunes (R -CA) [4th generation Portuguese [Azores] inheritance] came to the defense of the haters:

“When you use a totalitarian tactics, people, you know, begin to act crazy,” Nunes told C-SPAN’s Steve Scully Sunday morning when asked about the slurs. “I think that people have every right to say what they want. If they want to smear someone they can do it. It’s not appropriate–I think I would stop short of characterizing the 20,000 people protesting, that all of them were doing that.”

Nunes claimed that Democrats were using the racist behavior of health care protesters to distract from the vote itself.

*

Sunday update, from TNR

Moments ago, while members were on the floor for a vote, a protester stood up in the visitor’s gallery and began shouting “Kill the bill! Kill the bill! Kill the bill!” Clerks quickly removed him. But as they were doing so, a number of Republicans–at least half a dozen, from what I could see from a few feet away–were cheering the man.

So, after any of Code Pink’s periodic outbursts from the same gallery, is there any record of any member, cheering?  Curious minds….

Some Republicans are now deploring the actions of “a few idiots.”

Seems they could have stepped up to the plate earlier…