Robert Reich doesn't think there is anything to worry about

...because that “anything” would be “healthcare reform”.

Why are these meetings brimming with so much anger? Because Republican Astroturfers have joined the same old right-wing broadcast demagogues that have been spewing hate and fear for years, to create a tempest.

But why are they getting away with it? Why aren't progressives—indeed, why aren't ordinary citizens—taking the meetings back?

Mainly because there's still no healthcare plan. All we have are some initial markups from several congressional committees, which differ from one another in significant ways. The White House's is waiting to see what emerges from the House and Senate before insisting on what it wants, maybe in conference committee.

But that's the problem: It's always easier to stir up fear and anger against something that's amorphous than to stir up enthusiasm for it.

We’re not sure what Reich is talking about with respect to “no healthcare plan”, it’s referred to as H.R. 3200 and checks in at over 1,000 pages so we can only assume he got a hold of some bad shell fish before he wrote this.

But let’s take Reich’s finer point about the plan lacking specifics and being short on the details. Given this, the President’s master plan for the summer was to send Democratic congressmen home to their districts to fight for healthcare legislation and which would be supported by “hit back twice as hard” force from the White House for this same legislation that Reich claims the White House is waiting to see what emerges from the House and Senate?

That was the plan? How does that make any sense? Maybe that’s why the summer of ’09 has become the summer of ass-kickings.

It is refreshing to hear a proponent of government-managed healthcare admit a) his side is completely incompetent in pitching a plan that may or may not exist and b)we should be in favor of something of which no one knows what it is to be in favor.

To counter Bill Maher, we all may not be the sharpest tools in the shed, but we damn sure know when we’re getting jerked around, especially when it involves something as critical as healthcare.

Keep your politics off our bodies!