Routine No. 1

If media powerhouses like talk radio and Fox News are any indication, the wheels are coming off Barack Obama's longtime ambition to nationalize the U.S. healthcare industry. A July 29 Gallup poll shows that only 44% of Americans believe that the President's plan will result in improvements to healthcare. August has proved a hot month for Democratic congressmen who are getting roasted about the President's plan at town hall meetings across the country.

So the President has gone back to the old-time Democratic pol playbook, and called Routine No. 1. Democrat Routine No. 1 says never argue with conservatives on facts; you can't win. Always argue through emotion. 

Be prepared: The White House says expect a new healthcare sales tactic after Labor Day, when Pres. Obama rolls out a new media attack on conservatives. Out are deficit projections, quality life- year studies, and nuances between a public option and insurance cooperatives. In will be gut wrenching stories about heartless insurance companies and heart-tugging tales by little pigtailed girls about how daddy doesn't have any insurance anymore because he got laid off. 

Expect every television news program break to be crammed with million dollar spots produced by Madison Avenue and paid for by the President's unlikely bedfellows on this backroom political deal: the pharmaceutical industry, the American Medical Association and AARP. 

But don't you believe it. The President is a master of creating bogeymen and rallying support by blaming the bogey. As in his lifting the presidential ban on stem cell research: "Rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced...a false choice between sound science and moral values." In this case Pres. Obama painted his predecessor as a medieval mandarin, unable to reconcile science and religion, when the truth was the opposite. (Pres. Bush's ban led to tremendous strides on other types of cellular research that hold great promise.)

When you're carpet bombed with 30-second spots featuring the new Harry and Louise, cute little kids and huggable grandpas, remember the facts: what the President is desperately reaching for has resulted in rationing, backbreaking costs, and a lack of innovation everywhere it's been tried. Those are the facts.

So don't be impressed at this last-ditch effort at socialism. In 1948, at an Illinois campaign stop, a supporter shouted to Harry Truman during his stump speech, "Give 'em hell, Harry." The President's classic reply: "I don't give them hell. I just tell the truth, and they think it's hell." 

So when they try to hide the facts behind slick commercials and speeches to handpicked audiences, give 'em hell.

Just thought you might like to know.