HEH:

Get this: The party of “community organizers” is now whining that President Obama’s critics are organizing communities — against his health-care scheme.

The nerve of ’em, huh?

Faced with mushrooming opposition to ObamaCare, Democrats have launched a multi-media campaign that attacks foes as “extremists” who’ve “called out the mob” to “destroy President Obama” and “intimidate and silence regular people.” They cite “the playbook of high-level Republican political operatives.”

Actually, that sounds more like the tactics of the Chicago street, where Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel cut their political teeth. Indeed, you can almost hear Richard Nixon grousing about angry anti-war protestors and pleading for “the great silent majority of Americans” to rise up.

Except, you know, that that’s what they’re complaining about . . . .

ROGER KIMBALL: Paul Krugman and Dorothy Parker.

MICHAEL YON SENDS A PHOTO FROM AFGHANISTAN, and reports: “I made this photo last night in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. This Landing Zone is very dangerous. A few weeks ago, another helicopter was coming into this LZ and was shot down at the last minute, killing all passengers and crew. Two children on the ground also were killed. The sparks coming off the rotors occur when the helicopters land in hot, dusty conditions. The landing itself occurs in a dangerous ‘brownout.’ Brownout danger is compounded by the sparks which light up the dust and can confuse pilots who are wearing extremely sensitive nightvision goggles.”

U.S. DEFICIT climbs to 1.3 trillion dollars. “The deficit for the first 10 months of fiscal year 2009, which began October 1, reached 1.3 trillion dollars, close to 880 billion dollars greater than the deficit recorded through July 2008, said the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO).”

DANNY GLOVER: The media take aim at “the mob.” “Journalists are beginning to deploy subtlety as a weapon in their coverage of the protests over healthcare reform. They have learned that tank barreling down the middle of the street, like the one CNN’s Susan Roesgen drove during the Chicago Tea Party in April, is too obvious to work, so they have assumed high and hidden perches instead.”

More here.

TAKING ON PHARMA-MOCKERY:

Here’s something else that mystifies me: the progressive derision for Viagra. Here’s a group of people who are opposed to abstinence-only education on the grounds that it is simply not possible, or for that matter worthwhile, to persuade teenagers to keep it in their pants. They go into convulsions every time a Catholic hospital refuses to dispense birth control, or pay for its employees to buy same. So why the fixation on Viagra? Sexual dysfunction may not be a disease, but it’s still a problem. Considering how vital most progressives seem to think healthy sexual functioning is to people in their prime reproductive years, you’d think they’d be happy that we can now help more people participate in this vital sphere of human life. Instead, ED drugs are the poster children for Drugs Big Pharma Wasted A Ton of Money On Rather Than Developing Something Useful*.

Well, we don’t need birth control either–we could just decide to be celibate–but I don’t hear so much complaining about the commercials for Seasonale or the HPV vaccine.

These inconsistencies are accounted for by the any-weapon-to-hand style of debate. Or maybe sex for older people is just supposed to be icky.

Some related thoughts of mine are here.

STIMULUS: Fannie Mae needs another big bailout.

IOWAHAWK: Know Your Town-Hall-Mob Agitators. Some of ’em look pretty scary. . . .

ARNOLD KLING asks what progressives believe. Tyler Cowen answers.

OOPS: Blanche Lincoln to health-care protesters: Hey, sorry for calling you “un-American”. I guess she forgot that dissent is the highest form of patriotism! Plus this: “Cited in this same piece as smoking-gun evidence of a top-down Republican astroturf campaign: The memo debunked by Mary Katharine Ham 27 hours ago. Sigh. Exit question: Is Lincoln’s retreat a sign that the backlash to the left’s demagoguery is now in full swing? Foolproof though it may seem, calling your constituents Nazis actually isn’t a surefire path to reelection.”

MICKEY KAUS: “If an ‘astroturfing’ campaign gets real people to show up at events stating their real views, isn’t it … community organizing?”

KEN MCINTYRE: Associated Press outsourcing to Leftist nonprofits is a bad idea.

BIG HOLLYWOOD: Hollywood Gets a Pass as Desperate Dems Crank Up Class Warfare Machine.

FRANK J. FLEMING criticizes those Obama/Joker posters: “The Joker was very careful in his planning, while the chaos from the Obama administration is explainable by pure incompetence.”

MEGAN MCARDLE: The politics of Ick.

HARTFORD COURANT: Protesters Confront U.S. Representative At Simsbury Supermarket Meeting. “Chanting ‘Dump Chris Dodd’ and ‘No national health care,’ scores of angry constituents confronted U.S. Rep. Chris Murphy at a meet-and-greet outside the Super Stop & Shop Wednesday afternoon.”

GATEWAY PUNDIT: More Carnahan hijinks.

UPDATE: Similar report from Tampa. “I got to the ‘public’ townhall sponsored by Rep. Kathy Castor and the SEIU an hour and a half before the doors were scheduled to open. Apparently, it would not have mattered when I arrived. We stood out in the 90 plus degree weather only to be told that that the hall had been filled through a side door and no one else would be let in. . . . I am upset, like everyone else that showed up, that we were locked out of what was supposed to be a public meeting. On the other hand, I am really proud of my fellow citizens. We represented every age group, every race and ethnic group. Rep. Kathy Castor made it clear that she doesn’t represent us. That is okay. Next election, we will find someone who does.”

Related: Flag Me.

DAVE HARDY: Obama Snitch Plan Illegal.

UPDATE: Power Line: Taking the dissident database seriously.

CONSERVATIVES who hate Sarah Palin.

JEANNE SHAHEEN: “Rights were trampled” by anti-Obamacare protesters, but pro-Obamacare protesters are fine.

WOMEN EAT LESS when men are present.

A TRAILER FOR The Blind Side.

EVAN COYNE MALONEY: Did the White House violate the Privacy Act.

FAMILY HEADS TO ALASKA on five-person bike.

BEES ARE getting drunk in the Smokies.