Protest is Un-American?

In an Op-Ed today in USA Today, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Steny Hoyer (D-MD) jointly wrote a piece aimed at two main points: Trying to sell national health care, and deriding those who oppose it.

Op-Ed Here

My question, regardless of where you fall on the issue of health care, is this:
Why is protest against it now called un-American?

After we, as a nation, endured 8 years of some of the most vile name-calling and protesting since the Vietnam era, in protest of a Republican president, we were told that protest is an American tradition. We were told that not only were the protesters correct in their opinions, but that they were not 'traitors' for holding them - indeed, they were patriotic for standing up and standing against that which they believed was wrong.

So why are other Americans now wrong to do so? Why are the Americans who are now protesting waging 'an ugly campaign' and 'disrupting private meetings' and, in general, behaving badly? The Op-Ed's authors would have us believe that: "These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American." That's a quote from the piece.

Regardless of the specific tactics being employed (and seriously, today's health care protestors have nothing on the "BusHitler" crowd when it comes to disrupting speakers on campuses, burning American flags, etc.), when did protesting become un-American? Further - do you find it disturbing that the Speaker of the House and the House Majority Leader are, together, basically telling the protestors to 'sit down and shut up'?