Is John Boehner, in a gesture of cross-the-aisle compassion, trying to help Democrats not lose seats in Congress later this year by warning them not to pass health care legislation? Or is the Republican leader of the House playing the old Br’er Rabbit card?

Br’er Rabbit, you’ll recall, in a popular Disney movie, was in a tight spot. The critter was about to be done in by enemies. He asked that just one final request be honored. He begged they not throw him into the briar patch — which these vindictive-minded enemies did to spite him, only to hear the cunning rabbit laugh because he was born in that patch and getting thrown there was no punishment at all.

Which, of course, is what Boehner and his sidekick in the House, Eric Cantor, have been doing when warning that passing health care will cost the Democrats dearly in the upcoming election. It won’t.

That’s because almost all the health care provisions in present reform packages are back ended, They will do very little that improves or not improves most Americans lives one way or another between the time it pass (if it does) in late April or early May and the November elections.

The press will move on to other political obsessions in these months, and so will the thinking of the vast majority of the electorate. Specifically, they will be thinking about the things likely to come to the fore this summer.

That’s the height of the construction season, when the economy should pick up dramatically if it’s going to pick up at all in the near future. It’s when home sales will pick up dramatically and foreclosures will drop — or not. It’s when Iraq will fall apart again or stumble along quietly out of the consciousness of Americans, and when the American casualties in Afghanistan pile up or some kind of deal with the Taliban is cut and casualties fall off. When a huge hurricane or other natural disaster tests the leadership in Washington. When some crazed ninny gets away with a domestic violence attack or doesn’t.

For all kinds of reasons I think Democrats are going to get trounced at the polls this November. But they will not get trounced for passing a genuine health care reform. And any Democrat who falls for the Boehner-Cantor Br’er Rabbit scare pitch is even sillier than the would-be punishers of a carrot-stealing rabbit.