Demographics are avatars of a change bigger than any bill contemplated by Obama or Congress. The week before the health care vote, The Times reported that births to Asian, black and Hispanic women accounted for 48 percent of all births in America in the 12 months ending in July 2008. By 2012, the next presidential election year, non-Hispanic white births will be in the minority. The Tea Party movement is virtually all white. The Republicans haven’t had a single African-American in the Senate or the House since 2003 and have had only three in total since 1935. Their anxieties about a rapidly changing America are well-grounded.

So, it turns out that they're right after all. I've stayed away from the HCR debate mainly because it seems so firmly planted in the minds of unreasonable men. But the TeePee's desire to take the country back is right on, just not in the way it's been portrayed. Given the HCR bill's role as the line in the sand everyone has picked sides upon, there's going to be a lot more rhetoric.