Let's start some rumors

Late last week, the Democratic National Committee aired a web ad claiming the Republican Party wants to kill Medicare. I was encouraged to see this, not because I care about the GOP’s stance on Medicare, but because the Democrats were finally airing an attack (albeit nobody was really listening because it was awkwardly timed and poorly marketed) that was, at best, borderline true.

Does the Republican Party really want to “kill” Medicare? It doesn’t really matter; all that does, is that we’re saying they want to and that sounds really bad. So let’s start spreading the rumor. Rumors are great things in politics, particularly when they’re hard to trace back to a particular source. It would be really great if the Democrats could start some rumors of their own. Yes, essentially what I’m advocating is that we start lying. It’s highly effective and in a war, you need to play by the standards that your opponent is, except better. Rumors are so much better than the facts. It’s not very effective –or fun – to argue that we want to cut costs and reduce overhead and increase preventative care. I’m already asleep. And I don’t have an enemy.

On the other hand, if someone starts a rumor saying the Republicans want to stop immunizing children then people can really start screaming on CNN. How about the Republicans want to ban anesthesia? Or limit the number of prescriptions you can fill? Or euthanize your dog?

Any would work, and I’d imagine with a little time and creativity, the crowd at Air America or the Huffington Post could come up with some real doozies. I’d love to start hearing some of them. I’d love to hear folks with a dose of crazy (because, believe me we’ve got our share of crazy) spewing off on cable news and at town hall meetings about some left-wing rumors. Because we can scare people too. And when you do, you win.

Is that what I think public debate should be about? Not at all.
Is this right? Absolutely not. But I’m sick of losing.