Health Reform: To hear Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tell it, what people think regarding what the president and Congress do is irrelevant — or worse, immoral.

The Democrats' leader in the U.S. Senate, who will be in the fight of his political life back home in Nevada next year, accused Republicans of Civil War-era racism in opposing the multitrillion-dollar big-government health care revolution Congress and the president have planned.

"Instead of joining us on the right side of history, all the Republicans can come up with is, 'Slow down, stop everything, let's start over,'" Reid charged on Monday.

According to Reid, "When this country belatedly recognized the wrongs of slavery, there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down. It's too early. Things aren't bad enough.'"

Going further, Reid then compared Republican obstructionism to the opposition to women's suffrage and the civil rights movement.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., called the remarks "beneath the dignity of the majority leader" and said he was personally insulted. But it's exactly in character for the left as it seeks to boost its powers in American life. Politicians who believe in the never-ending expansion of government are fully willing to pull out the stops when something as big as government-run health care is within grasp.

It is clear beyond doubt that the American public is revolting against what Congress has planned. Rasmussen pegs public support for Congress' health reform at just 38%; the Gallup poll shows it even lower at 35%.

An IBD/TIPP Poll of 922 adults last week showed only 42% support the plan, and 45% oppose it. Closer examination of the numbers is more revealing. Democrats support Congress' reform by 68% to 16%, while Republicans oppose it by 76% to 16% and Independents by 51% to 37%.

Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the president are a lot more concerned about what their base wants them to do — that 68% — than what the public overall thinks. If they don't enact the "change they can believe in," the MoveOn-Daily Kos crowd won't be doing any moving — or voting. Or at least a goodly portion of them won't.

No wonder White House Press Secretary Gibbs delivered his infantile diatribe this week claiming that the president's 47% approval according to the Gallup tracking poll — a new low — is meaningless.

It was among the lowest of any recent president in a December of his first year in office, but Gibbs complained about its "11-point spread" and quipped that "I'm sure a 6-year-old with a crayon could do something not unlike that." He added that "I don't put a lot of stake in, never have, in the EKG that is the daily Gallup trend. . .. I don't pay a lot of attention to the meaninglessness of it."

The Gallup number suggests the president's recent speech on the Afghanistan war has had little lasting favorable effect on his popularity. But Gibbs' words translate into not placing "a lot of stake in" the wishes of the American people, which the White House and the Congress obviously consider "meaningless" right now.

Americans are happy with the health care they have now — courtesy of the best medical system in the world — and as information about huge rises in premiums for families of modest means gets out, not to mention the trillions of dollars it will cost the government, they are saying stop, not just slow down.

So it's actually the people themselves who Harry Reid is accusing of maliciously being on the wrong side of history. Americans know how dangerous it is to let history become a narrative of bigger and bigger government. We'll check Harry's EKG after his coming election.