Franky Schaeffer overshoots again

I wholeheartedly support health-insurance reform, and I've already noted that I find the disruption of town halls--for the purpose of ending, not changing, the conversation--despicable.

Still, I think this clip is just further evidence that Frank Schaeffer has jumped the shark:





I don't doubt that there are seriously dangerous people on the right-wing fringe-of-the-fringe. (And sure, perhaps there's a left-wing equivalent too--certainly there has been in the past--but lately we've seen more evidence of the former.)

Still, it seems to me that the reason the more mainstream right is promoting these obnoxious and unconstructive tactics is not that they'll get someone to kill the president or a member of Congress but because they may well kill health-insurance reform. It's cynical, dishonest politics, but it's also effective politics. While it might, God forbid, inspire violence from someone on the fringe, that isn't its purpose. Its purpose is to derail health-insurance reform and weaken Obama, and there's no reason to doubt that this is the purpose because it's a very effective way of achieving something conservatives want very badly.