GEICO Fires Voice Actor After He Insults Tea Partiers

They didn't stop the health care bill, but tea partiers have gotten the voice of GEICO fired. No, not the gecko, the guy who says, "GEICO, real service, real savings." It seems he called up the group FreedomWorks and left a long, nasty message with lines like, "What (are) the percentages of people that are mentally retarded who work for the organization and are members of it?," reports NPR.

FreedomWorks easily identified the caller as Lance Baxter (who does acting work as DC Douglas), mainly because he left his phone number in the message. After the group's president wrote about it at BigGovernment.com—urging readers to call both the actor and his employer—GEICO gave Baxter the ax. He gives his side of the story at his blog here, fessing up to the voicemail while accusing FreedomWorks of encouraging hate speech, writes Mark Memmott of NPR.
(More GEICO stories.)