A moderate Democrat Congressman from Georgia today found a swastika painted on the doorway to his office, several days after a raucous crowd disrupted his town-hall meeting to air their complaints about healthcare reform.
In addition, Rep. David Scott, who is black, told media outlets this week that some critics of healthcare reform have inappropriately confronted him on the issue of race, even going as far as to call him the n-word.
"These people are bringing [in] race � and 'Negro' and 'colored' and Obama," Scott told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday. "We should applaud the fact that we have an African-American president and he is working on this. This is a great thing. But it should not be a racial situation. What have we done except look at the problem and move on it?"
The swastika incident is the latest example of how the healthcare debate, fueled in part by cable news, is careening off the rails, catching the Obama administration off guard.
Opponents have argued, for instance, that healthcare reform will mean euthanasia for the elderly and disabled. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said it would lead to bureaucratic "death camps" that could kill her child, who has Down Syndrome. Radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh has compared the Democratic Party to the Nazi regime.
President Obama today took a stab at calming the frenzy, hosting a townhall debate in New Hampshire. At the event -- which included supporters and opponents alike -- Obama said many of the arguments by the opposition have sought to create "boogeymen out there that just aren't real."
"Where we do disagree, let's disagree over things that are real, not these wild misrepresentations that bear no resemblance to anything that has actually been proposed," Mr. Obama told the audience, according to the New York Times.
As for Scott, he filed a police report Tuesday after seeing the four-foot-wide swastika, painted in black on the door to his Georgia office over the official congressional sign, according to Fox News.
On Aug. 1, Scott lost his cool while speaking at a townhall forum that was meant to focus on transportation but deteriorated into a shouting match due to the loud presence of several protesters of healthcare reform.
"Not one single one of you had the decency to call my office and set up for a meeting -- OK?," he'd said.
Scott also has received threatening letters. One says "You were, you are, and you shall forever be but a (n-word)," according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It includes a photo of Obama with a hammer-and-sickle logo on his forehead.
Stories of such tactics on health care have been surfacing since late last month.
On July 28, a protester hanged Rep. Frank Kratovil, (D-Maryland) in effigy. In Texas, protesters brought a tombstone to symbolize their preferred political fate of Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett.
In some cases, the high emotions have led to real -- if cryptic -- threats of violence. In Michigan this week a man who was escorted out of a townhall forum for shouting down a congressman told Fox News that a liberal "thug" harassed him later that night, and promised that if it happened again, he'd use "lethal force" to protect his family.
In response, House speaker Nancy Pelosi co-wrote an op-ed piece published in USA Today Monday that may have backfired, referring to the tactics as "un-American," and drawing widespread rebukes on the blogosphere.
