The Atlantic Wire always knew health care was interesting, but now the debate may be getting too hot to handle. The day opened with National Review conservatives calling Obama a hypocrite and striking back at Pelosi for "suggesting that American citizens are Nazis."  On Wednesday, the House speaker had called opposition demonstrations “AstroTurf” and criticized protestors for carrying swastikas. Around mid-morning today, fresh news emerged of the protestors returning the favor. With each side predicting a Holocaust should the opposition prevail, even the commentators are starting to get pessimistic.

• The Window Is Closing, wrote Mike Lux of the Huffington Post. “The economic and political storm are gathering in the sky, and we can’t afford to do nothing to change the dynamics.”
• Doomsday Is Upon Us, Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall suggested, with a headline quoting William Butler Yeats’s poem, “The Second Coming.” Marshall tied the Hitler comparisons from the Right to the “birther” frenzy, and expressed concern over where these controversies seem to be heading; both promote, he argued, a view of Obama as “a usurper.”
• Government Medicine Kills, Deroy Murdock declared earlier this morning, getting a head start on the afternoon’s apocalyptic musings. Murdock pointed to high death rates for diseases in Canada and the UK. 

Beneath the rushing firestorm, some more moderate voices can be heard on both sides:

• They’re Both Nuts, Matthew Yglesias concluded. Nevertheless, despite his “dislike of the ‘political terrorists’ line of attack” coming from the Left, he reserved special disdain for conservative wingnuts: “the right is seriously trying to convince people that Barack Obama will be euthanizing their grandparents.”
• Every Action Prompts a Reaction, the National Review’s Rich Lowry argued. Like Marshall, he grouped the Holocaust comparisons with the “birther” controversy, but with a different conclusion: Democrats should stop trying to “tar all Republicans as extreme in what it hopes to be a self-fulfilling narrative of conservative obsolescence.” Regarding Obama’s plan to “reorder one-sixth of the economy,” he wrote: “only a conservative opposition that had curled up and died wouldn’t raise holy hell.”

 “Holy hell,” as it happens, is precisely what the other commentators are worried about.

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Heather Horn