First the transcript of the exchange between Dan Savage and Keith Olbermann. Saying the Democrats need to "Man up", I would sugest that they woman up too, and do whatever it takes to prove to the voters that elections DO matter, instead of this crazy game where Republicans control the debate when they win elections AND when they lose.

But first, on to the show.

KO: "Congressman Bachmann, first, we might say she picked up where previous Republican zealots left off, except that some of her utterances seem exponentially more bizarre and even random. Is there some sort of machine generating these remarks or is there actually a person there?"

Dan Savage: "There's actually a person there and that person is a big problem for the Republican party, and she's symbolic of an even bigger problem for the Republican party. They began 20 or 30 years ago pandering to the Religious right and the Religious right realized that it could just run it's own candidates, elect it's own people and put the nuts in charge, and that's what they've done. Michele Bachmann is a religious extremist and a nut and she's the kind of person who once upon a time the Republicans could count on her vote and her support for saner, more middle of the road Republican candidates who could work with Democrats and weren't bat crap crazy and now she's the ones who's in there and they are stuck with her and her extremism."

KO: "So she, uh, she hears voices and wrestles snakes and that sort of end of the spectrum here, you know, cause even in that area . . ."

Dan Savage: "And she sees every political dispute as this battle between good and evil, as some sort of apocolypse, and just ratchets up the rhetoric, we've seen her do it in 2008 when she called for investigation into the Anti American attitudes of members of congress, uh, and all of her extreme remarks during the health care debate and the cap and trade debate, the last time she was talking about letting blood in the political battle it was the lock and load and armed and dangerous argument she was making about green house gas emissions. She's nuts."

KO: "Well, yeah, but you wonder how many people are going to follow her in this, "Let's all slit our wrists" idea? and another thing . . "

Dan Savage: "I think if they want to show their commitment they should start with their throats."

KO: "We'll just pass on that. How, how do they twist the idea of, say, just to pick a figure out of a hat here, say, Jesus Christ and, you know, the Golden rule and taking care of, particularly the sick and turn this into opposition to health care. IIn a sense, if they are trying to emulate Christ, if they can't personally heal disease and passers by, should they not be willing to help doctors do so?"

Dan Savage: "I'm sure they want to hear this from me because I'm an avowed atheist but my dad was a Roman Catholic deacon and my mom was a lay minister and I went to the seminary and was confirmed in the Catholic church. I've read the bible backwards and forwards, and a lot in there, a lot Jesus had to say about taking care of the sick, housing the homeless, feeding the hungry, visiting and not executing the prisoner and nothing about capital gains tax cuts, nothing about denying health care to American families and American children and nothing about this sort of insane opposition to a democratically elected President. They really have hijacked Christianity and are giving it a bad name. The reason we see spikes I think in more and more people who no longer identify with any religious faith or belief is because now to say you're Christian in America means now you are saying I am in the same boat , the same bat crap crazy boat as Michele Bachmann. A lot of even nominal Christians wouldn't say that.anymore, cultural Christians don't want to say that anymore"

KO: "Strip the religion and stick to the ethics of religion which is often very simple even to people who don't believe and, we don't know anybody who would boo the late Senator Kennedy at the Shikowski town hall belong to the religious far right. I mean, I got heat for saying Ronald reagan was a lousy President and I waited 4 or 5 years until he died to say it, just out of repect for the dead. Are, haven't the ethics of these folks, the religious and non religious alike in this opposition just been all over the map?"

Dan Savage: "When you have a party that claims to speak for God, claims that God is on it's side, the rhetoric heats up and the anger heats up. It's not just a battle of ideas and positions and what's good for America and bad for the country. It's a battle of what God wants and what God doesn't want and you're, and it's easier to demogauge about your enemies and despise and to dehumanize in this really personal and viscious way, and the religious right is fomenting this kind of hatred in this country, and at our peril. I really do think that the Michele Bachmann's of the world and the Glenn Beck's of the world are actively, conciously or subconciously trying to get, I'm just going to say it, they are trying to get the President killed. That's why they're setting this up as kill or be killed arguements. He's gonna kill you grandma, pull the plug on grandma, death panels children have to go in front of. This kind of rhetoric, this paranoid style on the religious right, from the birchers to the birthers doesn't usually end well, and we, somebody's gotta put the brakes on it, and unfortunately, in the Republican party, there are no adults left in the room, there are only the Michele Bachmann's and the Glenn Beck's and the Rush Limbaugh's running the show."

KO: "The overall picture, help me out on this overall picture, and I'm not gonna, only gonna moderate your remarks in this degree that not all of the Republicans are not in this view that you just expressed, but unfortunatly a lot of what you're talking about you nailed perfectly, but this political strategy here which is, um, you polluted the waters here in this debate, the Republicans have, and now, okay, that's done, let's have a start over, let's have a do over on the entire debate. What is the political, um, linear thinking in that? We're, I see a disconnect in between August and Septemeber."

Dan Savage: "I think the Republicans are trying to use the Obama rope a dope strategy from the primaries, where they're trying to lure him with his desire to be bipartisan and to seem like he's crafting a concensus solution to the health care problem, trying to lure him back into a whole fresh round of this that will not end well. A little, well, and for him and the Democrats. The Democrats need to call their bluff and go it alone, and not be suckered into another whole, uh, to debate with the Republicans would, Republicans are not debating this in good faith"

KO: "And give this new meme of, as we're hearing from Mr. Alexander, Senator Alexander, these phony town halls that THINO (Town Hall In Name Only) this is the new form of choice, Democrats get astroturfed by health insuranace employees shipped in buses and Republicans can only handle invited guest and friendly, I mean, is Mitch McConnel that much of a mommy, and why is John McCain participating, it might as well be scripted?"

Dan Savage: "Well, that's the Republican M.O. coming out of the Bush years. You only put your folks in front of an invited crowd and friendly crowd and then you put the video out and you put out and make it look like there is some sort of national consensus, some national motion for your guy, for your candidate, for your position, and you know clearly they're gonna send their thugs and their screamers to Democrats events to make Democrats positions look controversial. The majority of the country wants health insurance reform, but there sending the birchers and birthers to these meeting to scream and yell and create the apppearance of controversy and the media, which is capped by it's uh, allegiance to always describing every debate as a 50/50 either or, they create the impression that there is a deadlock when there is not, and it is a very concious working around startegy on the part of Republican startegists."

KO: "Where does it go from here because we've heard Congressman King from Georgia, who is another whack job say we're going to continue the town halls in September, when there aren't any town halls in September, when they get back to work. And Senator Gregg has said he will use a ton of procedural motions to slow things up. Do you have any idea where they are going to go next with this?"

Dan Savage: "I don't know where the R's are going to go next. I know where the Dems are going to go next. They need to man up themselves. They need to call the bluff. We need to end the filibuster. We have majorities in the House and Senate, we have the Whitehouse and the American people sent Barack Obama to the Whitehouse and handed the majorities in the House and Senate to the Democrats because they wanted helath insurance reform, because they wanted a solution, and the Democrats have to get up off their knees and push it through, and then they can take all the credit or all the blame, and I think once it's passed it's going to be very popular, just as Medicare has been and still is, cause the reason why the Republican Michael Steele is out there insisting that he's opposed to government run health care programs but he's gonna protect Medicare which is a Government run health care program is because once it's enacted and once Americans see that the Government can run this well and provide health care and health insurance, uh, at a, in a way that private insurance has proved that they can not it's going to be popular and it's going to give Democrats credit and they should have the courage to do it and go it alone."