When The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was first introduced and debated in Congress, polling on the individual parts saw an overwhelming majority of Americans approving. Well, with Democrats in charge of our framing, we all knew that wouldn't last.

Enter Frank Luntz and the Republican Dirty Framing Machine and we got Death Panels killing grandma and it was all over but the funeral.

Democrats screwed the pooch on this because in the 30+ years Luntz has been teaching Republicans how to talk, Democrats have refused to fight back with equally compelling language that illustrates our policies using our moral frames.

This may be a battle that is so long into the siege that it can no longer be won, but I'm not going to go down without fighting for what I believe is the best way to turn this conversation around and start winning back all those people who liked what was in the bill in the first place, but have been talked out of supporting the bill by the Fright Wing Party of America.

President Obama is a brilliant man. But like anyone else on this planet, he's also capable of being led astray. I don't know who advised him to try to "own" the pejorative "Obamacare," but they were dead wrong. Dead wrong. The president's little Twitter hashtag game completely backfired when Republicans started using it to continue their disparagement of it in the nastiest terms possible. "Obamacare" is no more embraced by those who would potentially support it if they understood it than it was last summer.

And there was nothing about that hashtag that would have made it look utterly stupid for someone to be objecting to!

That's why I'm proposing that we forget "Obamacare," and that we even abandon the here-to-fore "official" name, The Affordable Care Act. That's become a joke now, too. "Affordable care — yeah, right. My premiums went up 20 percent the minute the damn thing passed!"

But how ridiculous does it sound to oppose Patient Protection? Who (in their right mind) could be against that?

So I have a challenge for each and every one of you:

Fire up your Twitter accounts and start tweeting the hashtag #PatientProtectionAct, along with something it protects. Here's a list of my tweets using it — copy them and tweet them yourselves. And post your own here, too, so the rest of us can copy and tweet them, too.

(Tweets below the fold.)

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I hope the Obama administration stands firm on this one. It was only a matter of time until the church upped the political ante, and of course a low-life like Newt Gingrich is only too happy to jump on the bandwagon. The American church's hierarchy climbed under the covers with the right wing decades ago, and they're all too happy to tear down the Democratic candidates on command:

During church services on Sunday, Catholics around the country were read a blistering letter assailing the Obama administration for an "assault on religious liberty" in the form of a coming requirement that most church-linked organizations - among them hospitals, schools and universities - offer birth control coverage as part of their health care plans.

Despite strong lobbying from religious groups, the Health and Human Services Department announced earlier this month that most church-linked groups will not be exempt from the requirements - which also mandate that no co-pay be charged for contraceptive services - though they will have an extra year to comply beyond the August 1 deadline.

Churches themselves (along with any other employer that is explicitly focused on offering a religious message, and which primarily employs those who believe in that message) are exempt from the requirement.

Religious groups were outraged by the decision - saying it forced employers at church-linked organizations to violate their conscience - and on Sunday Catholic leaders took their complaints directly to parishioners. As Business Insider reported, similar letters were read in churches around the country complaining that "the Obama Administration has cast aside the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, denying to Catholics our Nation's first and most fundamental freedom, that of religious liberty."

In an appearance on "CBS This Morning" Monday, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich brought up the letters, using them as an opportunity to attack both the Obama administration and Republican rival Mitt Romney.

"The Obama administration has just launched an attack on Christianity so severe that every single church in Florida had a letter read from the bishops yesterday all across the country - Cardinal [Timothy] Dolan was leading an effort to explain that, literally, freedom of religion in America is now being attacked by Obama," he said. "The Romneycare does the same thing. Romneycare has tax-paid abortions. Romneycare put Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in America, in the bill. No right to life group's in the bill. Planned Parenthood is. Romney himself approved taking away a conscience clause from Catholic hospitals."

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I'd say that the Roberts court has a serious credibility problem, since more Americans believe they will make a political ruling on the health care act than not. I believe that, too - I just don't know which constituency they want to placate. They'll either toss out the individual mandate, making the Tea Party and Mrs. Clarence Thomas very happy, or they'll figure out a way to keep it, thus making insurance companies and their Wall Street backers very happy. So either way, it's a win for them. Just maybe not so much for the rest of us:

More Americans think Supreme Court justices will be acting mainly on their partisan political views than on a neutral reading of the law when they decide the constitutionality of President Obama’s health-care law, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Half of the public expects the justices to rule mainly based on their “partisan political views,” while fewer, 40 percent, expect their decisions to be rooted primarily “on the basis of the law.” The rest say both equally or do not have an opinion.

The court held a historic three days of oral arguments on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act last month, and its ruling probably will come just before the court adjourns at the end of June. The poll shows little enthusiasm for the Obama administration’s position that the law, passed by the Democratic Congress in 2010, should be upheld in full.

Only a quarter of Americans choose that as the desired outcome. Thirty-eight percent would like the entire law thrown out; 29 percent would like the court to strike the requirement that individuals obtain health insurance and to keep the rest of the law.

Only 39 percent of Americans support the health-care overhaul in general, the lowest percentage since the Post-ABC poll began asking the question.

The public’s perception of the court is closely tied to partisan and ideological leanings. Almost twice as many conservative Republicans think the court will decide on the basis of the law rather than politics, 58 to 33 percent. Liberal Democrats are more skeptical, saying by an equally wide margin that the court will put politics first.

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