Freudian slips expose GOP vultures

Last week, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky had to apologize after predicting the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

So then Rush Limbaugh predicted that the health care bill now making its way through the Senate will be called, "the Ted Kennedy memorial health care bill."

Excuse me, but both Justice Ginsburg and Senator Kennedy are very much alive, thank you. It is true that they are both battling very dangerous forms of cancer, but with advances in medicine it is no longer true that a diagnosis of a brain tumor or pancreatic cancer means a certain and quick death sentence.

At the very least, you'd hope these folks on the right would cool their heels a bit. It's probably asking too much to expect them to have the decorum to not be talking about someone's death while they are still alive, but the ease with which they talk about it makes me wonder how much they've been ruminating on the subject and whether they are hoping for Justice Ginsburg and Senator Kennedy to die soon.

It certainly reminds me of how a couple of years ago when South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson suffered from a ruptured blood vessel in his brain, within hours right wing news outlets were flooded with pundits reminding us that South Dakota has a Republican governor who would have picked his replacement. Which would have been true, in fact, except for one little detail-- Senator Johnson recovered from his stroke and was just re-elected to the Senate last year. He now has a clean bill of health.

It's bad enough when the GOP calls out the attack dogs, but please at least keep the vultures at home in a cage.