And from Obama himself, the once presidential candidate who wanted to have civil discourse and get beyond name calling, the message to his critics is: “get out of the way.” Anyone who disagrees with ObamaCare is now a crank, a stooge, or an obstructionist. Even the Washington Post editors have had quite enough of the “round-up-the-usual-suspects demagoguery.”…

Alternatively, the president’s spin-squad (i.e., the mainstream media) has decided to take up the fringe conspiracy theory claiming Obama was not born in the U.S. and run with it, in a rather transparent attempt to portray Republicans as lunatics — or even subversive…

And that has been Obama’s favored tactic since taking office. There was the effort to “Limbaugh-ize” the GOP rather than debate the merits of the stimulus. Now the “birthers” play the decoy role while the administration flounders in the health care debate.