As this column is written (here) there comes word that John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO has announced hell be sending in union members to the meetings to counter health cares critics. Somehow that doesnt sound like a peace initiative.
-- Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal We have entered uncharted territory in the fight over national health care. Theres a new tone in the debate and its ugly. At the moment the Democrats are looking like something they havent looked like in years and that is: desperate.
They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan. A Democratic operative the other day called it Hillarys revenge."
When Mrs. Clinton started losing to Barack Obama in the primaries 18 months 
ago she began to give new and sharper emphasis to her health-care plan. Mr. Obama responded by talking about his health-care vision. He won.
Now he would push what he had been forced to highlight: Health care would be a priority initiative. The net result is falling support for his leadership on the issue falling personal polls and the angry town-hall meetings that have electrified YouTube.
In his first five months in office Mr. Obama had racked up big winsthe stimulus childrens health insurance House approval of cap-and-trade. But he stayed too long at the hot table. All the Democrats in Washington did. They overinterpreted the meaning of the 2008 election and didnt fully take into account how the great recession changed the national mood and atmosphere. And so the shock on the faces of Congressmen whove faced the grillings back home. And really their shock is the first thing you see in the videos. They had no idea how people were feeling. Their 2008 win left them thinking an election that had been shaped by anti-Bush anti-Republican and pro-change feeling was really a mandate without context; they thought that in the middle of a historic recession featuring horrific deficits they could assume support for the invention of a huge new entitlement carrying huge new costs. The passions of the protesters on the other hand are not a surprise. They hired a man to represent them in Washington. They give him a big office a
huge staff and the power to tell people what to do. They give him a car and a driver sometimes a security detail and a special pin showing hes a congressman. And all they ask in return is that he see to their interests and not terrify them too much.
Really thats all people ask. Expectations are very low. What the protesters are saying is You are terrifying us."
What has been most unsettling is not the congressmens surprise but a hard new tone that emerged this week. The leftosphere and the liberal commentariat charged that the town hall meetings werent authentic the crowds were ginned up by insurance companies lobbyists and the Republican National Committee.
But you cant get people to leave their homes and go to a meeting with a congressman (of all people) unless they are engaged to the point of passion. And what tends to agitate people most is the idea of lossloss of money hard earned loss of autonomy loss of the few things that work in a great sweeping away of those that dont.
People are not automatons. They show up only if they care.
What the town-hall meetings represent is a feeling of rebellion an uprising against change they do not believe in.
And the Democratic response has been stunningly crude and aggressive. It has been to attack.
Nancy Pelosi the speaker of the United States House of Representatives accused the people at the meetings of carrying swastikas and symbols like that." (Apparently one protester held a hand-lettered sign with a no" slash over a swastika.)
But they are not Nazis theyre Americans. Some of them looked like theyd actually spent some time fighting Nazis.
Then came the Democratic Party charge that the people at the meetings were suspiciously well-dressed in jackets and ties from Brooks Brothers. They must be Republican rent-a-mobs.
Sen. Barbara Boxer said on MSNBCs Hardball" that people are storming these town hall meetings" that they were well dressed" that this is all organized" all planned" to hurt our president." Here she was projecting. For normal people its not all about Barack Obama.
The Democratic National Committee chimed in with an incendiary Web video whose script reads The right wing extremist Republican base is back."
DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse issued a statement that said the 
Republicans are inciting angry mobs of . . . right wing extremists" who are not reflective of where the American people are."
But most damagingly to political civility and even our political tradition was the new White House email address to which citizens are asked to report instances of disinformation" in the health-care debate:
If you receive an email or see something on the Web about health-care reform that seems fishy" you can send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.
The White House said it was merely trying to fight intentionally misleading" information. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas on Wednesday wrote to the president saying he feared
that citizens engagement could be chilled" by the effort. Hes right it could.
He also accused the White House of compiling an enemies list." If so theyre being awfully public about it but as Byron York at the Washington Examiner pointed the emails collected could become a dissident database."
All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter.
Is this what the president wants? It couldnt be.
But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office.
You really if youre president cant call an individual American stupid if for no other reason than that youre too big. You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan extremists" and right wing" or bought or Nazi-like either. Theyre citizens. Theyre concerned. They deserve respect.
The Democrats should not be attacking they should be attempting to persuade to argue for their case.
After all they have the big mic. Which is what the presidency is the big mic.
And frankly they ought to think about backing off.
The president should call in his troops and his Congress and announce a rethinking. There are too many different bills theyre all a thousand pages long no one has time to read them no one knows whats going to be in the final one the public is agitated the nations in crisis the timing is wrong well turn to it againbut not now. Well take a little longer ponder every aspect and make clear every complication.
You know what would happen if he did this? His numbers would go up. Even Congresss would. Because theyd look responsive deliberative and even wise. Discretion is the better part of valor.
Absent that and lets assume that wont happen the health-care protesters have to make sure they dont get too hot or get out of hand. They havent so far theyve been burly and full of debate with plenty of booing. This is democracys great barbaric yawp.
But every day the meetings seem just a little angrier and people who are afraidwho have been made afraid and left to be afraidcan get swept up.
As this column is written there comes word that John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO has announced hell be sending in union members to the meetings to counter health cares critics.
Somehow that doesnt sound like a peace initiative.
Its going to be a long August isnt it?
Lets hope the uncharted territory were in doesnt turn dark.
