The important things in the health care discussion

Want to get an idea of how skewed the health care debate in this country is? Perhaps you know my Congressman, Barney Frank. The guy who got re-elected in 1990 with 66% of the vote even after he was nearly unanimously reprimanded by the House of Representatives. Yeah, that guy . . . and that district. So he had one of those town hall meetings on health care, where lo and behold, he confronted the same kind of rowdy conservative mobs that have been getting an awful lot of press coverage. It just goes to show you that even though they scream the loudest, they are not representative of the average viewer at home -- they only appear that way by showing up en masse and shouting down any and all opposing views.

This is confirmed in a recent NBC poll: Obama's health care approval ratings -- while not impressive -- have not gotten any worse in recent weeks. Meanwhile, misinformation on the proposal abounds. As Jon Stewart remarked on the TV coverage of politics, "The race to the bottom is done with tenacity."