Health Reform--But at What Cost to Obama?

I watched the Health Care Reform vote on Sunday as if it were the Academy Awards. I was happy that it passed, but I'm fearful of what comes next. Yes, it's a triumph of political maneuvering on the part of Obama and Pelosi, but can the President sell it to these angry town-hall disrupters?

What's missing is an honest, dispassionate debate on the bill and what it does and does not say. We need to get beyond the name-calling and fear-mongering and spinning--on both sides. Yes, it's reprehensible that the n-word and the f-word were flung at congressmen by a few angry protestors and that Congressman from Texas called Stupak a baby killer (or that he said "It's a baby killer" referring to the bill, though nobody has found the "It's a..." on tape). But I want to see a calm, cool discussion on why those angry people are so angry and what are they so afraid of? I want Obama to talk to people like them and allay their fears and explain that most of the stuff they think is in the bill (death panels like on that episode of The Twilight Zone with Fritz Weaver and Burgess Meredith, rationing of care, etc.) just isn't there. Or is all this just ginned up by Fox and Friends? I feel sometimes we're living in two different worlds. One says this is the best thing that ever happened since Social Security and the Civil Rights Act, another says this is the worst thing that could ever happen and it's the end of America.

I'm genuinely worried that the congratulatory ink spilled by Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd isn't gonna mean shit in November and possibly in 2012 when these red-state yahoos and tea-baggers try to take back Congress and the White House.