Healthcare foes use fear, not reason

Today's column by Leonard Pitts is great:

...it would be really valuable to hear an explanation of [the America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009] by those who presumably have read it, followed by vigorous questioning. Instead, the circus has come to town.

I refer, of course, to the chaos that has erupted at townhall meetings as Democratic lawmakers try to sell the bill. The New York Times reports shouting matches, fistfights, threats, injuries and arrests. Georgia Congressman David Scott says he's had death threats and a visit from vandals who painted a swastika outside his office.

If you wonder what the Nazis have to do with this, join the club. It's an incoherent protest, and where there is incoherence, naturally, there is Sarah Palin. The former governor of Alaska weighed in on Facebook with a claim that Democrats were proposing a "downright evil" system in which the fate of the elderly and the disabled would be determined by "death panels."