Once again, the "some of my friends are------ (fill in the blank)

The growling undercurrent of violence in conservative rallies and rhetoric since Sarah Palin loosed the animal spirits in her 2008 rallies has burbled up into the open again, this time in Tennessee. From Think Progress:

Last week, Republican candidates in Tennessee’s “8th Congressional District made candid comments about gays at a “Tea Party forum that included discussion about the military’s ‘don’t ask don’t tell’ policy,” the Associated Press reports. Ron Kirkland, George Flinn and Randy Smith criticized President Obama for trying to lift the ban, arguing that it would add “unnecessary” stress the military. Then, Kirkland re-called how gay servicemembers were treated during his time in the military:

Kirkland, a Vietnam veteran, said of his time in the military: “I can tell you if there were any homosexuals in that group, they were taken care of in ways I can’t describe to you.”

Smith, who served in the first Iraqi war, added: “I definitely wouldn’t want to share a shower with a homosexual. We took care of that kind of stuff, just like (Kirkland) said.”

Kirkland later clarified his remarks, telling a reporter from the Jackson Sun that he was joking. “It’s a joke,” he said, stressing that he didn’t mean to invite violence against gay servicemembers. “Things don’t go well in military barracks when you have 50 guys sleeping on top of each other.” “It was just the reality of the way things were,” he said. “It’d be the same as having men and women in the same barracks.”

Smith, meanwhile, admitted that has friends who were quietly gay while serving in the military. “He claimed to be mainly concerned about increased hazing and violence perpetuated by a ‘bad element’ that he thinks could come with a repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

Kirkland then tried to walk his comments back with the standard conservative line that "It was a joke." An SC conservative used it when he called Mrs. Obama descended from a gorilla in the Columbia zoo.

The joke, however is on anybody who believe Smith's (another GOP candidate for the seat) assertion of concern about increased harrassment and hazing from a bad element in the service if gays serve openly. Just follow the circular reasoning back to the head of the story and how he and his buddies dealt with gays when they were serving quietly. If there's a bad element in the US military, might it be a result of relaxed moral standards that let misdemeanants and even some felons to enroll as a means of meeting recruiting quotas?

Kirkland's comment resemble a giddy Tucker Carlson- then slowly failing as an MSNBC talk show host- recalling in 2007 how he took the law in his hands against someone he thought gay. And he told what he did.