I'm so sorry my neglected and abused pit bull ate your kid

That doesn't reflect on me now, does it?:

Tea Partiers and others on the right are starting to distance themselves from the recent spate of violence and racism that has characterized the opposition to health-care reform.

In a letter to President Obama and Congress released yesterday, an alliance of Florida Tea Party groups called the Tea Party movement "a peaceful movement" and declared that they "stand in stark opposition to any person using derogatory characterizations, threats of violence, or disparaging terms toward members of Congress or the President."

A similar coalition in Colorado -- where the office of Rep. Betsy Markey (D-CO) recently notified police about a phone call it received threatening violence -- released a similar statement. "Tea party and similar groups across Colorado are saddened tonight to hear of threats made upon Democratic lawmakers in response to the passing their recent health insurance reform legislation, specifically ... Rep. Betsy Markey," it said.

And FreedomWorks, the Washington grassroots lobbying group that has helped co-ordinate Tea Party events put out a statement declaring "political violence is both immoral and ineffective, and will only set the movement back."

Apparently you guys haven't been paying attention to what you've been encouraging, egging on, inciting. We sure have.

I fully expect teabaggers and wingnuts to go into a tizzy of mock surprise when an elected official is shot at. But it would be really interesting to watch the reaction if such a despicable action was aimed at a Republican.

Pit bulls often turn on their own family.

*edited to fix quote

Update: Digby nails it:

They know that serious violence is very likely. They are simply inoculating themselves against the charge that it was their inflammatory rhetoric that caused it. It will be the Democrats complaining about their inflammatory rhetoric that made the teabaggers snap. If they'd just stayed quiet and not made daddy mad, he wouldn't have had to hit them.

The only thing these people should be doing is calming down their crazies. Instead they're ginning them up. Heckuva job.

Update 4/1/10: Kelly Kleiman of the blog The Reality Based Community touches on this very thing: Health care reform politics and Kristallnacht 2010.