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How's Obama doing?

The public trusts Obama more than it trusts Congress on health care. Obama's best hope — probably his only hope — of providing some sort of relief will be to wrest control of this process from congressional Democrats after Labor Day by finally putting forth his own specific plan.

But what about the Republican protesters who are grabbing headlines and TV time?

Bear this in mind: the crowds of white Middle Americans disrupting public meetings across the nation are the same crowds — about 20 percent of the electorate — that believe the filthy lie that Obama's presidency is illegitimate because he was foreign-born (they're wrong).

Rooted in the Regan and Bush philosophy that holds "If it's not Republican it must be illegal," these people are only several steps removed from the Nazi-era brown shirts that birthed fascism in Germany. This mob will not be happy with anything less than white, Christian authoritarianism.

Obama's election was a repudiation of their putrid vision. And there is nothing in the polls to suggest that they are anything but a hate-filled minority.