On Saturday night, Rep. Anh Joseph Cao, an Asian freshman Republican congressman representing a heavily democratic/black district in New Orleans, was the only member of his party to vote “yea” on the House health care reform bill.

Now, after being hailed by John Boehner as “a symbol of our future” just a year ago, the wingnuts are ready to string him up.

Here’s what Boehner said of Cao in a letter to House Republicans last December:

As House Republicans look ahead to the next two years, the Cao victory is
a symbol of what can be achieved when we think big, present a positive
alternative, and work aggressively to earn the trust of the American
people. Joseph Cao is a Vietnamese immigrant whose experience in America drew him to the Republican Party and its traditional commitment to freedom and reform. Working with like-minded Republicans such as Governor Bobby Jindal, he took an aggressive stand against corruption, offering a principled alternative to what voters were offered by the local Democratic establishment. Shrugging off conventional wisdom, he ran as a reformer in a district hungry for new representation in Congress. And he won…

The Cao victory is a symbol of our future. In the two years ahead, House
Republicans will demonstrate our commitment to reform by holding ourselves to the highest possible ethical standard – and, with new faces like Joseph Cao and John Fleming and the rest of the incoming GOP freshman class in our ranks, by presenting principled, superior solutions to the challenges facing our country.

Yeah, well, so much for that.

Angry teabagger tweet via Wonkette