Maybe that’s how to handle crazy Town Hall protesters: Call them on their crazy. Congressman Barney Frank did just that last night, in a moment from last night’s Town Hall in Dartmouth, Massachusetts that is all but designed to go viral.

In a Town Hall that was already plenty feisty, a woman stood up and compared the widely-circulated-and-widely-debunked-at-least-by-serious-sources “Death Panels” to the Nazi’s T-4 program of exterminating people with illnesses, deformities or otherwise deemed “unworthy of life.” Said the woman to Frank: “Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy?”

Here was Frank’s response:

“When you ask me that question, I’m going to revert to my ethnic heritage and ask you a question: On what planet do you spend most of your time?”

“You stand there with a picture of the president defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis. My answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this sort of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated.”

“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.”

Here’s the video:

Not surprisingly, this video clip has spent the night and morning making the rounds on cable and online; “Barney Frank” is already a trending topic on Twitter. Perhaps also not surprisingly, the incident gets only a brief mention halfway down in an article on Fox News.

Funnily, a article in the Bostonist published yesterday before the Town Hall altercation begins thusly: “Barney Frank is fearless when it comes to giving his opinion.” Indeed!

It should be noted that the questioner was very likely a plant from LaRouchePac, which is a fringe/extremist political action committee run by Lyndon LaRouche. More information here.

Related:
Who’s Behind The Obama-As-Hitler Posters? [Mediaite]