Barney Frank and the vengeful dining room table

It was one of Barney Frank’s better bitchier moments. A few months ago, Frank unleashed hell on a woman at a town hall meeting after she asked him a “question” about President Obama’s “Nazi” health reform policies.

“On what planet do you spend most of your time?” Frank asked, adding, “Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.”

The town hall meeting ended. Everyone in the media had a good laugh over the video clip. But unbeknownst to the world, the dining room table went home and began plotting its revenge.

Behold! Rachel Brown, the table herself, has emerged a few months later, and has challenged Frank for his Congressional seat. Brown’s supporters will take comfort in the knowledge that the monotonous routine of campaigning has not softened her platform. She still plans on impeaching the president, for he is still Hitler-like in his Hitlerness.

Brown is a disciple of fellow Obama-is-Hitler enthusiast, and mail fraud aficionado, Lyndon LaRouche. Of course, when he isn’t serving 15 years for tax code violations, LaRouche is also famous for being very good at coming up with batshit crazy conspiracy theories that usually involve The Gays, or The Jews, or The British People.

In addition to leading what the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation calls “one of the strangest political groups in American history,” LaRouche can now add inspiring Brown’s foray into politics to his dubious list of “achievements.”

Despite the challenge from a LaRouchian crackpot, the pollsters (for some reason) still seem to think Frank will maintain an edge come election time. Perhaps they reached the conclusion utilizing an old algorithm, which relies on the certitude that at least some of the residents in Boston, and its surrounding suburbs, live on planet earth.

Giving salivating liberal bloggers everywhere a sneak peek into her Book Of Ideas, Brown previously said, “I think we need a program in the economy based not on only surviving for the moment, but a policy increasing physical production and allowing new discoveries to be made, with the new frontier being Mars,” Brown said.

What we need are pragmatic ideas…in space!

Brown’s website boldly proclaims: “Let’s get off this planet. This is a debate that would be better had in space, where it would be amply clear that the method of thinking of flat-Earthers like Barney Frank, is mortally flawed.”

Poor Barney. Not only did he have a vicious f-word hurled at him by right-wing extremists during the health care debates, but now Brown is hurling a new derisive slur his way: “Flat-Earther!”

All of this certainly qualifies as fresh thinking. Here are all of us suckers, brainstorming solutions for global warming, and preserving the planet for future generations, while the forward-thinking LaRouchians prepare to strap on jet packs, give us the ol’ middle-fingered salute, and exit Earth…stage up.

The concept of fleeing the host planet certainly gives new meaning to “Love it, or leave it!” LaRouche, and his spawn Brown, not only don’t love their home, but they’re actually planning a mass exodus from it, which of course raises the obvious question: Why does someone who plans to flee the planet want a government position in one of its countries, inside one of its dinky, soon-to-be-doomed states?

Nevermind.

The colonization of Mars didn’t appear to impress old man Frank, who told Politico that he didn’t “plan to spend a lot of time on her,” and that Brown’s idea is not one he “need spend much time addressing,” in addition to her belief that “the president is like Hitler, or not like Hitler.”

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The breadth of Brown’s political knowledge was tested on Tuesday when she debated Frank, a prospect that had the Senator somewhat less than flustered. “I regard her as an example of the price you pay for free speech,” he said. “I don’t think she is very rational.”

Frank and Brown met for the only scheduled debate in the Democratic primary race for the 4th Congressional District in Massachusetts. The results were fairly predictable. Barney got in his trademark triple-snap remarks, while Brown tried to explain to everyone why her desire to colonize Mars shouldn’t be grounds for immediate expulsion from any future adult conversations. (If you’re mad at your brain, you can watch the full video over here).

Frank called the idea of using nuclear fusion to bring astronauts to Mars in three to seven days “wacky,” but other than the exotic sound bite of Brown’s space exploration desires, the candidates soon fell into repetition. Brown expressed her desire to reinstate Glass-Steagall, an admirable wish that Frank argues will not in itself solve the economy’s problems.

Brown called Obama “psychologically a ticking time bomb” that is apparently doomed to explode and rain down swastikas and tiny mustaches. But the president isn’t just like Hitler. He’s also Roman Emperor Nero, who “fiddles while the United States burns.” So Barack is either the next tyrannical authoritarian monster to lay siege upon the world, or he’s going to oversee the collapse of the American empire. Perhaps he can do both because I’ve also heard he’s the anti-Christ, who never sleeps.

Frank countered that while Obama “may not be my hero, he is not Hitler either,” an assessment that many Progressives have reiterated. The dude is overseeing two deeply unpopular occupations, but he hasn’t yet started building the gas chambers.

It has always struck me as profoundly ironic that individuals like Brown appear deeply concerned about pretend conspiracies (Führer Obama is coming to suffocate grandma!) while actual atrocities like the ones committed against the Iraqis and Afghans don’t outrage her or the other LaRouchians.

Obama isn’t acting like Hitler when he uses the brute strength of the U.S. military to kill hundreds of thousands of poor brown people, but he somehow becomes history’s greatest monster when he expands healthcare coverage.

You see why Frank barely had to summon the strength to speak in order to crush Brown in her debate debut. The problem with Brown is that for all her fair points (Frank can’t possible regulate the financial industry due to his close ties with Wall Street, investment and commercial banking must remain separate, etc.,) the message becomes distorted by hyperbolic attacks that appear to be fueled by Obama’s otherness.

There were no hysterical demands for the end of genocide from LaRouchians during Clinton’s Iraq sanctions, or during Bush’s invasion. It is only now that there’s a black president that suddenly conservatives seem concerned with authoritarianism, and not even in the spirit of something noble like ending the Iraq occupation, but for overhauling the health care system. For Brown, and the LaRouchians, that’s a bridge too far. Or maybe a table too far.

Oh, also, she wants to colonize Mars. Hello!