From "No" to "Boo!"

In the battle over health care, the Republican Right, after months of saying no to every Obama initiative from stimulus to bailouts, has gone on the offensive to slice and dice Americans into warring factions--young-old, men-women, rich-poor, anywhere fear and hatred can be stirred up.

Sarah Palin, bless her feisty heart, started it all with "death panels," but naysayers are now working the other side of the age divide. After warning the young that ObamaCare will kill their Granny, they are now goading them with worries that Granny will impoverish them by raising premiums at their expense.

In the House bill, they have driven a wedge into well-settled policy over abortion that would expand restrictions on what the President yesterday called "the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions” but, in his diplomatic way, said he wanted to make sure “we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices."

On a broader front, the Wall Street Journal uncovers, on the basis of a New Yorker writer's blog post, the sinister purpose of it all--"to further redistribute income by putting health care further under government control, and in the process making the middle class more dependent on government."

As the fear-mongering escalates, little wonder that Gallup finds "no clear mandate" while Americans struggle to understand what's in thousands of pages of proposed legislation and Republicans keep crying "Boo!" at every turn.

Someone should tell them that Halloween is over and that it's time to get serious about bargaining over legislation that will affect us all for a long time.