Stop the fearmongering

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Oh, please. The Obama Administration isn't setting up some Orwellian-totalitarian database to keep track of internal enemies of the state, as Byron York is alleging.

There won't be any monitoring of dissent, as Sen. John Cornyn is alleging, nor is there any threat to "free speech and public discourse." And there isn't any "data collection program."

What the White House has launched is a campaign to rebut the various lies -- "misinformation," as Robert Gibbs put it -- that are being viciously hurled about by the right to try to knock down health-care reform.

The fearmongering is yet more evidence of how Republicans operate, following up lies with yet more lies. There is, evidently, no low to which they will not stoop.