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Suppose President Bush had asked citizens to inform him of every anti-war comment made "in casual conversation." He might have been impeached. He probably would have deserved it.

I understand that President Obama and Co. do not (yet) intend to prosecute or persecute Americans just for disagreeing with him on health care reform. Yet it is extremely creepy that the president of the United States has asked Americans to rat out one another, to e-mail his hotline so that he can keep track of the viewpoints opposed to his.

This behavior from the federal government is instructive in another way. It shows that Mr. Obama is being flooded by the issues he's taking on. We already have a destructive recession, a crippling federal deficit, rising anger between Americans of differing political persuasions, and six or eight international relations issues that might erupt into something very ugly in the next year. That's plenty for the plate of any one president (or three).

The current debate on national-level health care reform adds another, huge layer. It's one more reason for conservatives and libertarians to dislike and distrust liberals and statists and vice-versa. It's one more massive strain on the federal budget, and the federal budget really can't handle what it's already got. It's one more thing that is distracting intelligent people away from the war in Afghanistan (and, from everything I've read, we need every available intelligent person to contribute to that effort).

And it's one more thing that the president and his staff must spend political and intellectual effort on. Mr. Obama and his people are so busy with other things (other, legitimate federal concerns that are genuinely at crisis levels) that they can't keep track of this debate.

By their own admission, they're taking on too much.