"The insurance industry is up to the same dirty tricks, using the same devious PR practices it has used for many years, to kill reform," says Wendell Potter, who stepped down last year as chief of corporate communications for health insurance giant CIGNA. "I'm certain that people showing up at these town halls feel that they're there on their own — but they don't realize they're being incited, ultimately, by the insurance industry and the other special interests."

[Dick]Armey, however, unabashedly compares FreedomWorks to a lynch mob. "We used to use the old saying in the West, that you got outta town just one step ahead of the hangman," he says, explaining why George Bush's budget-busting policies didn't inspire the same outrage among his 400,000 followers. "That's pretty much what happened with Bush. And poor old President Obama walked into town, y'know, just at high noon."