Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank, a veteran Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, held a town hall meeting yesterday and was confronted with an issue many congressional Democrats have seen over the last few weeks: health care antifreformists.  But Congressman Frank had direct words for the woman, who compared President Obama to Adolph Hitler.

A Harvard undergraduate and Harvard Law School alum, Frank is one of the sharpest legislators in Congress, and he showed it here.  Where other Congressional Democrats have become enraged and yelled back at protesters, Frank called the death-panel-alarmist, tinfoil-hat-wearing movement what it truly is: crazy.

The tone became contentious at other points during the town hall meeting.  The audience yelled at Frank for "putting down" the woman who compared the health care reform bill to Nazism.  But Frank contended that the acrimonious tactics that continue to be the weapon of choice for health care opponents was ultimately futile.  "What do you expect to accomplish by yelling?"

The misinformation campaign of protesters and groups like former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey's FreedomWorks- which distributed literature to its supporters describing methods of disrupting town hall meetings- inexplicably continues to gain traction.  But Democrats can not allow themselves to be shouted down with utter nonsense.  Frank managed to stand his ground, and his Democratic colleagues have to do the same.