Harry and Louise Packing Heat

Almost two decades ago, health insurers defeated Clinton health reform by inventing an iconic American couple sitting at the kitchen table to worry out loud about socialized medicine.

This time around, Harry and Louise are looking more like Thelma and Louise, not in TV commercials, but at "town halls" spewing lies, hate and carrying guns, with Republican Congressmen validating their rage as patriotism.

In his weekly address before vacation, President Obama served as Debunker-in-Chief, rebutting "some of the more outrageous myths circulating on the internet, on cable TV, and repeated at some town halls across this country"--that health care reform would cover illegal immigrants, pay for abortions, set up "death panels" for the elderly and other bilge that caused Congressmen Barney Frank this week to ask a questioner who invoked Nazi Germany, "On what planet do you spend most of your time?"

The President's rational answers to the irrationality being stirred up by private opponents for financial profit and public officials for political gain are irrefutable.

"We’ll prohibit insurance companies," he promises, "from denying coverage because of a person’s medical history. They will not be able to drop your coverage if you get sick. They will not be able to water down your coverage when you need it most. They will no longer be able to place some arbitrary cap on the amount of coverage you can receive in a given year or a lifetime. We’ll place a limit on how much you can be charged for out-of-pocket expenses, because no one in America should go broke because they get sick.

"And we will require insurance companies to cover routine checkups and preventive care, like mammograms and colonoscopies. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be catching diseases like breast cancer and colon cancer on the front end. That makes sense, it saves lives, and it will also save money over the long-run. Taken together, the reforms we’re seeking will help bring down skyrocketing costs, which will mean real savings for families, businesses, and government."

Reasonable arguments can't dispute the sense and sanity of trying to do that, so in today's debate, there are no reassuringly normal Harrys and Louises to make the case for the opposition but their counterparts spewing prefabricated demagoguery and waving guns.

In the battle for health care reform this time around, there is more at stake for American society than health care reform.

A Reverse-Nixon Era

Back then, the White House was obsessed with enemies lists and conspiracies, now we have a President trying to calm crowds riled by the prospect of death panels and plots to steal its freedoms. As Obama's approval ratings fall, pinpointing American paranoia is much harder than it was in the 1970s.

Just as the social upheavals of the 1960s allowed Richard Nixon to play on the anxieties of what he called The Silent Majority, the Era of Change has stirred up primal fears among Americans who need someone or something to blame for their unhappiness--Big Government, Obama's race, anything Other they can find to hate and vilify.

"Never forget," a Nixon tape revealed him telling his advisors, "the press is the enemy. The establishment is the enemy, the professors are the enemy... Write that on a blackboard 100 times."

Now, instead of hate flowing outward from the White House, it is being directed at everyone in Washington--the Administration, Congress, the media--and no amount of rational argument about the specifics of health care reform will make it all go away.

The current rage is no doubt being stoked by fringe activists, but its persistence has to be taken seriously as a reaction to something that has unsettled millions.

The President and his Congressional allies can keep denying, as they must, absurdities that they have plans for “death panels that will basically pull the plug on Grandma,” but for the time being, nothing will reassure True Believers who have found a focus for their feelings in town halls, amplified by media coverage.

It took years for Nixon to implode from his paranoia, but the Republicans who are hoping to profit next year and beyond from today's emotions may want to remember that the attention span of enraged voters is hard to sustain and keep focused without a blowback against all politicians.