By Peggy Noonan, Wall Street Journal

Frustrated Obama supporters are striking back against those who speak out

We have entered uncharted territory in the fight over national health care. There’s a new tone in the debate, and it’s ugly. At the moment the Democrats are looking like something they haven’t looked like in years, and that is: desperate.

They must know at this point they should not have pushed a national health-care plan. A Democratic operative the other day called it “Hillary’s revenge.” When Mrs. Clinton started losing to Barack Obama in the primaries 18 months ago, she began to give new and sharper emphasis to her health-care plan. Mr. Obama responded by talking about his health-care vision. He won. Now he would push what he had been forced to highlight: Health care would be a priority initiative. The net result is falling support for his leadership on the issue, falling personal polls, and the angry town-hall meetings that have electrified YouTube.

In his first five months in office, Mr. Obama had racked up big wins—the stimulus, children’s health insurance, House approval of cap-and-trade. But he stayed too long at the hot table. All the Democrats in Washington did. They overinterpreted the meaning of the 2008 election, and didn’t fully take into account how the great recession changed the national mood and atmosphere.

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By David Corn, Politics Daily

Obama breaks another campaign promise

If I had been at the White House daily press briefing on Thursday, I would have asked an obvious question:

Robert, The New York Times reports that the White House has cut a behind-the-scenes deal with drug industry lobbyists to prevent Congress from squeezing more than $80 billion in cost savings from Big Pharma. Where were the television cameras when White House aides were working out this agreement with the lobbyists?

Flash-back to the 2008 campaign trail: Then-candidate Barack Obama promised a new level of transparency in government — particularly concerning the sausage-making that would produce any health care reform legislation. "We’ll have the negotiations televised on C-SPAN," he said, "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies."

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By Andrea Tantaros, Foxnews.com

Once upon a time our president wasn’t always down on dissent. After all, he was a community organizer way before he ever became a politician.

"Go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face," Senator Obama told his supporters on the campaign trail in fall of 2008.

So I suppose he was for bickering before he was against it?

The left has always loved community organizing-when it’s their interest. Heck, they are being lead by an expert in the field. But when regular folks gather to express unhappiness in the form of a dissenting opinion to their progressive agenda, they despise it, delegitimize it and seek to stop it all costs. Grassroots are bad when the roots aren’t firmly planted in the liberal ground. Apparently bills in Congress aren’t the only thing Democrats haven’t read in a while — how about the Constitution? Remember that? Isn’t this enshrined in the Constitution — freedom of Assembly? Isn’t this one of the foundations of our democracy, organizing, getting like-minded people with the same views to come together, whether they’re in Birkenstocks or Brooks Brothers? Last time I looked there was nothing "manufactured" about organizing for or against a cause.

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By J. Robert Smith, American Thinker

Obama is hustling voters

It’s becoming clearer day by day.  The President and Democrat leaders have been doing the Hustle. Not only hustling voters from the get-go, but hustling all year to push their statist legislative agenda through Congress.  And, most often, they’re attempting to do so in the still of the night.   

Why?  Because undemocratic Democrats understand better than they’re given credit that a solid majority of Americans occupy the center-right.  Democrats, especially party liberals, well appreciate that last November’s election wasn’t a resounding mandate, but, rather, a small window through which to squeeze massive leftwing measures.

Wasn’t it the lighthearted Rahm Emanuel who said: "Never let a big crisis go to waste?"  And, he might have added, if the crisis isn’t big enough, gin it up. 

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By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown, Expose Obama

Christians being persecuted in America? Unbelievable

When Minister Trey Hancock baptized a teenage friend of his son, he had little reason to believe he was unleashing a jihad of bigotry. The teenager had attended his church for over two years, but when the teenager entered high school the baptism would set into motion the persecution of a string of Christians. Did these Christians live in Indonesia, Iran or Saudi Arabia? No, they live in Dearborn, Mich.

The most prominent victim is Gerald Marszalek, one of America’s most successful wrestling coaches; he was fired during the ugly chain of events by Fordson High School principal Imad Fadlallah. Marszalek’s “crimes” — allowing this Christian convert on the wrestling team, and allowing Trey Hancock to volunteer as assistant coach. Marszalek has filed a wrongful termination suit against Fadlallah and the public school district.

“We are getting a glimpse of what happens when Muslims who refuse to accept American values and principles gain political power in an American community,” said Richard Thompson of the Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm. “Failure to renew coach Marszalek’s contract had nothing to do with wrestling and everything to do with religion,” surmises Thompson.

During the summer of 2005, the young man decided he wanted to be baptized to publicly acknowledge his conversion to Christianity. These events all occurred before his freshman year at Fordson High School.

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