The right-wing media have spent the year BEGGING for progressive leaders to call them Nazis.

Back in April, media conservatives freaked out over declassified Department of Homeland Security report detailing potential increases in right-wing extremism. Ignoring the possibility that the election of a black president could have an actual effect on the radicalism and recruitment of actual hate groups - like, for instance, the Klan - the Limbaughs and Hannitys of the world were convinced that the report was actually aimed at them.

Then in August, Nancy Pelosi commented that protestors are “carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.” Sure enough, swastikas and other Nazi icons had appeared on signs carried by those protestors, who were suggesting that the Democrats' health care reform plans were reminiscent of Hitler's Germany. But the right-wing was sure that Pelosi was talking about them, and had been calling the protestors or opponents of health care reform “Nazis.”

Now, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) is getting the same treatment. In a floor speech yesterday, Whitehouse criticized Senate Republicans' rampant obstructionism of health care reform efforts, specifically their refusal to support cloture on a defense appropriations bill in hopes of slowing down attempts to move to a vote on health care. Whitehouse stated that Senate Republicans were “desperate to break this president,” adding “They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist.”

From Whitehouse's December 20 floor speech (about 115 minutes in):

The lowest of the low was the Republican vote against funding and supporting our troops in the field in a time of war. As a devise to stop health care, they tried to stop the appropriation of funds for our soldiers. There is no excuse for that. From that, there is no return. Every single Republican member was willing to vote against cloture for funding our troops, and they admitted it was a tactic to obstruct health care reform. The Secretary of Defense warned us all that a “no” vote would immediately create “a serious disruption in the worldwide activities of the Department of Defense,” end quote, and yet every one of them was willing to vote “no.”

Almost all of them did vote no. Some stayed away, but that's the same as “no” when you need 60 “yes” votes to proceed. Voting “no” and hiding from the vote are the same result. Those of us on the floor see it was clear. The three of them who did not cast their yes votes until all 60 Senate votes had been tallied and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion. And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.

They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.

Rather then assess the validity of Whitehouse's claims - do such people exist, and do they support Republcian senators? - the right-wing started screaming about how Whitehouse was accusing them all of membership in hate groups.

Washington Times blogger Kerry Picket got the ball rolling, providing Whitehouse's full comment but doing so under the headline, “Sen. Whitehouse: foes of health care bill are birthers, right-wing militias, aryan groups.” RedState's Erick Erickson took over from there, claiming that Whitehouse said that “If you oppose health care deform, you are a racist, hate-spouting, Aryan who roots for the assassination of Barack Obama” and “labeled everyone opposed to the legislation as racist hatemongers rooting for bullets against the President.” The claim spread through the right-wing blogosphere from there, and just made the jump to Lou Dobbs' radio show.

What seems oddest about the right-wing media's obsessive claims that progressives are calling them Nazis is the implication that comparing your political opponents to Hitler and company is out of bounds. If the right really believes that such comparisons are beyond the pale, maybe its time for them to stop informing us how much Obama and his politics remind them of Hitler.