Grayson: Imprison my critic for five years!

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), better known these days as Congressman STFU, suddenly has discovered a sensitivity to the “senseless and juvenile.”  When a Republican in Florida outside his district started a website with the domain name mycongressmanisnuts.com, Grayson went … well, nuts:

Not everyone thinks imitation is the best form of flattery.

In fact, U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson of Orlando took such offense at a parody website aimed at unseating him that the freshman Democrat has asked that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder investigate the Lake County activist who started the anti-Grayson website “mycongressmanisnuts.com.”

Specifically, Grayson accuses Republican activist Angie Langley of lying to federal elections. His four-page complaint highlights the fact that the Clermont resident lives outside his district, but that Langley still uses the term “my” in “mycongressmanisnuts.com.”

“Ms. Langley has deliberately masqueraded as a constituent of mine, in order to try to create the false appearance that she speaks for constituents who don’t support me,” writes Grayson. “[She] has chosen a name for her committee that is utterly tasteless and juvenile.”

Grayson’s office did not respond with comment other than to confirm the letter exists — including its request that Langley be fined and “imprisoned for five years.”

Just five years?  Why doesn’t Grayson just demand that Holder chop off her head?  After all, that’s the remedy that royalty and nobility usually demand.  (Drawing and quartering went out of fashion a while back, although Braveheart did its best to bring it back into vogue.)

Politico’s Josh Krasuhaar notes the particular irony of Grayson demanding to be treated with decorum:

It’s awfully ironic that Grayson is demanding to silence one of his critics, given his history of red-meat rhetoric against a host of powerful Republicans. Earlier this month, he told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews he wished Dick Cheney would “STFU.”

Earlier in the year, Grayson referred to conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh as a “has-been hypocrite loser” who “was more lucid when he was a drug addict.”

It seems that Grayson belongs to that pusillanimous clique of blowhards who can dish it out, but shriek like scared schoolgirls when one of the hoi polloi dare dish it right back to him.  Perhaps Grayson doesn’t realize that he doesn’t live in Elizabethan England, where the lords can have the serfs locked up for ridiculing their masters, but in America, where citizens have the right to criticize politicians — even to parody and satire them.  Criticism is especially necessary for the likes of Grayson, where satire may just be redundant anyway.

Besides, this little outburst proves Langley largely correct.  Grayson has to have a screw loose somewhere to send a letter to the Attorney General demanding prosecution and a prison sentence because someone’s making fun of him.  If you can’t stand the heat, Congressman, then heed your own advice and STFU.

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