In response to Joel's post earlier, here's Peter Ferrara, writing in the American Spectator on Wednesday:

President Obama and his lefty Democrat allies expect their new socialized medicine entitlement, once passed, to be permanent, untouchable, and beloved by the public, just like Social Security and Medicare. That is why they are so crazed to get it passed by any means and at any cost. But not living in the real world, they fail to understand that Social Security and Medicare are bankrupt under the government's own numbers, and are about to be fundamentally reformed themselves. It is beyond the power of even the authoritarian government to which the current ruling Democrats aspire to repeal the laws of arithmetic, even though that is the root of their ideology. The Tea Party movement, by contrast, understands all this perfectly well.

As I indicate in the comments to Joel's post, I'm not quite as optimistic. The shape and scope of the reaction against Obamacare and its attendant horrors is not yet clear. And although it may be heartening for those of us who follow politics closely to see this surge in activism from the Tea Party movement, we shouldn't forget that tens of millions of Americans either embrace the "reforms" under discussion -- having little or no idea what they would actually accomplish -- or have simply checked out of the debate altogether. The question, then, is not whether a majority of Americans will resist this change but rather whether just enough of those Americans who can resist this change will do so? The Tea Parties may not be enough.

Monkey Robb and I discuss this with John O'Hara, author of The New American Tea Party: The Counterrevolution Against Bailouts, Handouts, Reckless Spending and More Taxes, in the new podcast. I'll be posting the audio a little later Sunday.