A CONCLUSION from last week’s "Red Alert" rally on Capitol Hill. Jim Geraghty reports:

The Tea Party crowd began this process disliking the health-care bill, but what's really driving their current fury over it is the degree to which a majority in both houses of Congress have refused to listen to the skeptics or engage those who think it's a bad idea.

Every step of the process, the leaders of the majority have engaged in the worst possible responses — avoiding meetings with skeptical voters, clinging to talking points in the face of counterarguments, attacking the motives of the critics, demonizing them as extremists, un-American, etc. If they had treated the concerns that the plan will only expand bureaucracy and increase costs with respect from the beginning, the debate would be quite different today.

Note the congresional leadership’s attitude of anointment: “We are the leaders; our job is to lead. Your job is to follow along - not question our leadership.”