BEHIND THE TOWN-HALL UPROARS - AT 8:50 A.M. ET:  A brief but effective analysis by Fox News holds that the raucous town-hall protests are about a lot more than health-care "reform."  They go deeper, and that is bad news for the party in power:

WASHINGTON -- Recent town-hall uproars weren't just about health care. They were also eruptions of concern that the government is taking on too much at once.

That suggests trouble for the president and his party, and fears of losses in next year's midterm election are likely to shape the Democrats' fall agenda.

At August's town-hall meetings, voters often started with complaints about health care, only to shift to frustrations about all the other things President Barack Obama and the Democrats have done or tried to do since January. The $787 billion economic-stimulus package, the government-led rescue of General Motors Corp. and climate-change legislation all came in for criticism.

"A lot of the anxiety we face here has less to do with health care and everything to do with the overall state of the economy and government," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat.

"I have seen a level of dissatisfaction and even anger that I haven't experienced in the years that I've been a member of Congress," Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, told an audience at a health-care meeting in Kansas City on Monday.

COMMENT:  Inevitably, that kind of anger focuses on the president.  Clearly, there has been a loss of confidence in the man, a loss that he brought to himself through an above-the-battle aloofness, and a remarkable refusal to provide real leadership, even to his own party.  Sen. Chris Dodd, an Obama ally, criticized him for that just yesterday. 

And a lot of his wild spending didn't help either. 

The president apparently believed that his silver tongue could achieve everything, move mountains, roll back the seas and bring peace on Earth and good will toward men, as well as extend health insurance to everyone and increase tourist traffic at Martha's Vineyard.  We do hope he learns the job by the end of fall.

Please remember that in parliamentary democracies, votes to bring down governments are called votes of "no confidence."  If we had that here, Obama might get a good scare.

September 1, 2009