What Barack Obama described in the 2008 campaign is what we are seeing unfold in the country. Guns and religion -- or, in other words, fear and intolerance.

Now that his sex tape and other assorted sleazy doings seem to have taken John Edwards to the bottom, the mainstream media is on to the inevitable next story in this minor Greek tragedy, "Can Edwards make a comeback?"

Suddenly this summer, as right-wing mini-mobs turn health care forums into free-for-alls, as unhinged political rage flows in the streets, and as the Nazi and Hitler rhetoric flies, anger is in.

To most of us on the outside, the town-halls-gone-wild appear to reflect the intense feelings of a relatively small group of people who are very badly misinformed about what's actually happening in Washington.