Blindsided by the Left

No. I'm not talking about the White House. I'm not talking about the way that the managers of ObamaCare didn't see the revolt from their lefty base coming.

Although you would have to say that this White House bunch must be about the worst political operation in living memory.

I'm talking about Me. I feel completely blindsided. And that's not because I still haven't seen The Blind Side. No, what has me flummoxed is this: I never thought that the Angry Left would explode over the Individual Mandate.

Here's what the Kos Kids and the Keith Olbermann and Howard Dean are all in a twist over. They are outraged that the health bill as it stands includes an individual mandate (Americans are forced to buy health insurance) but doesn't include the public option (Americans are forced to buy health insurance, either from an insurance company or, wonder of wonders, from the government.)

So? What's the big deal? Compulsion is compulsion, ain't it?

That's that you think. That's what I thought. We wus wrong.

Didn't you know that it is utterly unacceptable to Force Liberals to Buy Health Insurance from an Insurance Company! Injustice! Not to be endured! Keith Olbermann says he'll rather go to jail.

See, liberals have no problem forcing you and me to go get our health insurance at the DMV. They don't care a whit about subjecting Americans to the indignity of bad service from SEIU members. No problem with that.

But don't you dare force a liberal to buy health insurance from an insurance company! Over that our liberal friends will take to the streets, will go to jail.

I don't think that our liberal friends realize what they are communicating to us with this utterly screwy hissy fit. I don't think they understand the ObamaCare is the biggest political screw-up in modern times. I don't think they realize that they are setting up the perfect storm in 2010. I don't think they realize they have utterly split the Democratic Party and they have utterly unified Republicans. Michelle Malkin:

Social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, the GOP leadership, Sarah Palin's heartland supporters, conservative think-tank intellectuals, D.C. and Manhattan conservatives, Big Business and small-business conservatives, Joe the Plumber conservatives, and every stripe and flavor of conservative in between are all united against the Democrats' proposed government takeover of health care. All.

Now you would have to say that forcing all conservatives into a united front takes a rare talent. After all, conservatives amount to 40 percent of the American people. That's a lot of people.

But it takes even more talent to split the Democratic Party. Between the Angry Left and the liberal think-tankers, between unions and trial lawyers. And so on.

And over the individual mandate. I just didn't see it coming!