Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde

Is it just me, or is President Obama - Mr. Cool himself - slipping into a Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde mode?

Peggy Noonan's column this week has a list of recent Democratic reaction to the uprising in town hall meetings and other places to protest the health care bills:

~ Accusations that the people showing up at town hall meetings are paid by insurance companies to be there. It's not "grassroots," it's "astroturf." (Senator Dick Durbin, D-Illinois)
~ And along those lines, they're not Americans protesting something that they don't like - they're just "angry mobs of right-wing extremists." (DNC Communications Director)
~ Accusations that the people showing up at town hall meetings are carrying signs with swastikas and other inflammatory symbols. (Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California)
~ Accusations that people are trying to "hurt our President" by making noise at town hall meetings about the health care proposals. (Senator Barbara Boxer, D-California)

From a couple of other sources, reports are trickling in that union people in Missouri and Florida are actually beating up people who are at town hall meetings to protest the health care bill. That's the way to get support for your bill, President Obama! Just get all the protestors out of the way by putting them in the hospital!

The piece de resistance is of course the Administration asking people to report "fishy" emails directly to the White House itself. And now Obama said this at a Democratic rally for the governor's race in Virginia:

"I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don't mind cleaning up after them, but don't do a lot of talking."

The mess, of course, being health care.

A couple of things for Mr. President ...

1. Guess what, this is not about you. I don't give a crap about you. I care about me, my family, my friends, and our children's future. Quit your whining about how everyone is picking on you because they don't like Nancy Pelosi's health care disaster (because, by the way, I don't seem to recall any proposals coming from your office). No one cares about you. They care about themselves.

2. If you can't handle being asked questions about the health care bill and defend it on the merits, then it's obviously not much of a bill. You should be encouraging people to ask questions, not trying to stop them. So that statement about wanting people to just shut up and get out of your way, well, I think you just set yourself up for a lot more roadblocks and even more noise. You have only yourself to thank (blame?) for that.

3. The House bill is supposedly going to "pay for itself" by people paying premiums into the public plan. Then where does this $240 billion to pay for it come into play? If the program pays for itself, then how and why is this running up the country's debt load even more?

4. Sure, "affordable" health care would be great for everyone to have (what is "affordable," anyway?) But if you crush the economy with unsustainable debt by creating yet another entitlement that we can't pay for, which is where we're already headed even without Pelosi-care, you get nothing. You don't have any health care at all, affordable or not, and you don't have an economy. You're just screwed.