In the run-up to Wednesday's vote by House Republicans to undo the Affordable Care Act, the McClatchy papers asked, "Will it last? Health care repeal debate takes on civil tone." The answer, of course, was no. The Republican Party that brought America bogus charges of "death panels," the "government-takeover of health care," and "job-killing" plans returned to its usual gun metaphors and claims of tyranny and socialism. Meanwhile, in an exception to the rule of incendiary Republican rhetoric, a Tennessee Democrat unfortunately compared their "big lies" to the Nazi propaganda machine of Joseph Goebbels.

Yesterday's vote on HR 2, the jaw-droppingly named "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act," was postponed a week after the bloodbath in Tucson. That delay was altogether fitting, given that several Democratic lawmakers received death threats for their March 2010 health care votes, among them recovering Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Nevertheless, after a briefly repacking their fraud about the "job-crushing" or "job-destroying" health care plan, GOP representatives quickly returned to their more familiar "job-killing" talking point.
For his part, Indiana Congressman and 2012 GOP White House hopeful Mike Pence took to the House floor to deploy the Republican rhetorical weapon of choice in criticizing the new health care law:

"Today House Republicans are going to stand with the American people and vote to repeal their government takeover of health care lock, stock and barrel."

Afterwards, Pence defended his language for its impact if not its truth. "I think it's important that we speak plainly, that we speak confidently, and that we speak respectfully," Pence said, adding, "In this case I think I did that."
Though the "government takeover of health care" was long ago debunked (and in December chosen as Politifact's 2010 Lie of the Year), House Republicans portrayed bringing 32 million more Americans to the private market of private insurers, private hospitals and private doctors as "tyranny" and "socialism."
Virginia freshman Morgan Griffith proudly touted his vote and his state's lawsuit to block the new law by branding President Obama an autocrat:

"As Virginians we did not accept the chains of George III nor will we accept the chains of ObamaCare."

Iowa Republican Steve King lashed out at what he called the "irrational Leftist lust for socialized medicine":

"What has made this a unique and great nation? It's not been dependency. It's been individualism. And the Democrats are creating dependency, and we are trying to save individualism."
"They can't help themselves; it's in their DNA. These people are Leftists. They don't see this country the way that we do. Their idea of American Exceptionalism is yet to come."

The recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars of federal farm subsidies and Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann echoed the socialism charge:

"Obamacare, as we know, is the crown jewel of socialism. It is socialized medicine...
To those across the United States who think this may be a symbolic act, we have a message for them: this is not symbolic. This is why we were sent here and we will not stop until we repeal a president and put a president in the White House who will repeal this bill, until we repeal the current Senate, put in a Senate that will listen to the American people and repeal this bill."

Sadly for Democrats, the Republican cornucopia of vitriolic health care hyperbole was almost completely overshadowed by Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen, who in essence dropped the other N-word in characterizing GOP myth-making:

They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels," Cohen said. "You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing."
"The Germans said enough about the Jews and people believed it--believed it and you have the Holocaust. We heard on this floor, government takeover of health care. Politifact said the biggest lie of 2010 was a government takeover of health care because there is no government takeover."

While the National Jewish Democratic Council responded, "We implore Cohen and all our leaders to choose their words carefully as we move forward," he was unapologetic:

"I don't think calling out liars is uncivil. No reason to apologize. You have a duty to respond. if they were telling the truth and I said they were lying, then I would apologize...
"I said Goebbels lied about the Jews, and that led to the Holocaust. Not in any way whatsoever was I comparing Republicans to Nazis. I was saying lies are wrong...I dont know who got everybody's panties in a wad over this statement."

One of those wadded-up panty wearers was CNN regular and Red State editor Erick Erickson. Ignoring his own side's verbal gun play and talk of dictatorship, criticized Cohen and lamented the short-lived civility in a piece titled, "Well, That Didn't Take Long." Of course, in attacking Steve Cohen's Goebbels comparison, Erickson conveniently forgot his own. As the health care debate raged in 2009 and 2010, Erickson, the same man who called a Supreme Court Justice a "goat f**king child molester" and joked about shooting Census workers and Washington state bureaucrats, said of an Obama spokesperson:

"Linda Douglass is really the Joseph Goebbels of the health care shop."

Later, Erickson admitted to his new CNN colleague Howard Kurtz, "I probably shouldn't have said that."
He might want to share that new-found wisdom with Steve Cohen and the legion of Republican flame throwers on Capitol Hill.