So, even though the so-called Health Reform Act was pushed through Congress by an interesting mixture of threats, bribes and general arm-twisting, over the objections of well over half the American public, and Botox Nan got her chance to strut her stuff with a gavel the size of a fifty-pound sledge-hammer . . . the denigration of Tea Partiers continues apace. In fact, it has gotten even shriller . . . gosh, you’d think the Democrats and their tools in the media would be just thrilled to pieces that they won, but the mere existence of opposition appears to constitute an unbearable offense to our very own House of Lords.

Yeah, it must be a real bummer for Democratic legislators and the Obama Administration, having people all over the Capital lawns, screaming “Kill the Bill” so loudly. You could almost hear them muttering to themselves; “Honestly, who are these rubes, and what in the world gives them the idea that we work for them?” Must have been a real bummer, expecting to stroll into an auditorium of bored elders, political cranks and busybodies and administer a bit of emollient verbal pablum, field a couple questions, and stroll back to DC and get on with it. Instead, all those obstreperous Tea Partiers showed – not just at the town-hall meetings, but at the district offices, bringing letters and petitions, sending emails and faxes . . . geeze, do you have any idea how much toner costs these days? And nothing contented these people, day after day after day, with the insistent questions and demands for answers; how’s the House and Senate supposed to do business and parcel out the pork if all these voters get ideas above their pay grade!

So, ignoring them didn’t much work, and ridiculing them as teabagging, sister-humping minority-hating morons didn’t much work; neither did all sorts of heavy breathing about the Homeland Security watchlist as possible terrorists, or painting them as such in Law’n’Order episodes or Captain America comic books . . . (look, I refuse to call them graphic novels. Same with places where mobile homes are parked. I call those trailer parks, ‘kay? And you kids – get off my lawn!)

Anyway, I am viewing the current antics of our American House of Lords, and their water-carriers in the traditional media with a wary eye. Now, from being ignored and ridiculed – Tea Partiers are routinely accused of encouraging violence, or even outright accusations of it. Not much actual evidence is offered for such claims. Videos from last weekend’s protest rallies around the Capital showing members of the CBC being spit on, or called racial epithets are at best inconclusive. Obscene and threatening phone calls to Congressional offices and homes, and un-sourced vandalism present a more serious problem; as your mother would say, someone could get hurt.

And when and if someone does get hurt, that’s when the fur will really fly, and don’t tell me that the Obama Administration, the Democrat side of the House and Senate, and the mainstream media creatures who adore them aren’t just aquiver with happy anticipation at the thought, especially if responsibility for an act of violence can be pinned to a frustrated citizen with some kind of Tea Party connection – no matter how tenuous the actual connection. And insisting, as I have had, over and over and over again, that Tea Partiers are generally responsible, law-abiding citizens, who really don’t have much of a race problem – that will have no effect. We will all be smeared, with the greatest vigor – and in fact, the smearing has already begun. The battle space is being prepped; and it is entirely possible that the required incident may be manufactured to order, if it doesn’t present itself naturally. Thoughtful and sensible commentators like Wretchard, at the Belmont Club, and Neo-Neocon are drawing unsettling historical parallels.

Yes, it’s going to be a damned long eight months. When we get to the end of that period of time, are we going to see anything that we recognize as familiar?