Well Done Wanda

So if you watch pundit based TV, you've heard the Republicans waxing outraged about this series of jokes by Wanda Sykes at the White House Correspondents' dinner.  Leaving aside the problem of the White House and the supposed "Fourth Estate" being cozy chummy, the jokes are funny and the Republican outrage over them is ridiculous.  

The most "outrageous" joke from the Republican point of view was something along these lines:  "Rush Limbaugh says he wants the Obama administration to fail.  That's like saying he wants America to fail.  He wants more unemployment,... That's treason.  I think he was the 20th hijacker but was too strung out on oxycontin to make his flight."

Republicans are accusing Sykes of everything from making fun 9/11 victims to insulting a decent patriot like Rush Limbaugh.  I even heard on pundit say, "I think it's disgusting for a woman to stand up in front TV cameras and say things like this."  (the context left it open to interpretation whether the speaker was particular upset that Wanda Sykes is a woman).  

Of course what Sykes said in jest, Republicans have based entire campaigns on.  In 2002, then Representative Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) famously questioned Senator Max Cleland's (D-GA, and a triple amputee veteran of the Vietnam war) loyalty and commitment to defeat Al Qaeda.  And it worked.  Chambliss won the Georgia senate seat from Cleland.  Ann Coulter entitled her book about why she hates the American left "Treason."  Representative Michelle Bachman (R-MN) famously demanded that her colleagues in the Congress be investigated for "anti-American" views.  

What has Republicans worked up into apoplexy is the possibility that loyalty and patriotism could be linked to government regulation of the economy with the goal of stabilizing the economy and - possibly - distributing some of the wealth in this country a little more evenly.