I find it mind boggling that the President's administration ridicules conservatives for believing in "conspiracy theories" on one hand and then on the other hand, they ask Americans to report "fishy" emails and web postings on the Internet.

On the White House blog, Macon Phillips posted this post about the Drudge vs. White House brouhaha over the Healthcare reform... errr... I mean Health Insurance reform. The problems began when the Drudge Report highlighted this video:

The video seems to show the President saying that his healthcare reform wouldn't get to single-payer healthcare but that change would require 15-20 years of transition. It sure seemed to suggest that he favored single-payer health care despite claims to the contrary.

The White House posted a video response with a bunch of clips in response which show President insisting that nothing in his healthcare... oops.... I mean health insurance reform plans would eliminate private insurance.

In conjunction with that response, this was included on the White House blog.

There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.

I find the idea that the White House is requesting that people notify them of "fishy" emails or web postings a bit troubling. On the heels of the fiasco over the disclaimer on the CARS web site, it is really unfortunate. It just feeds right into the conspiracy theory nuts. Who gets to decide whether something is "fishy." Is it "fishy" if it disagrees with the White House's position? What about the "fishy" emails I get from President Obama? Am I supposed to report those?

I think the post was just an innocent attempt to find out about emails or web postings that they might wish to rebut. Unfortunately, it wasn't well thought out. As it now stands, they've asked the American people to join the thought police and report their neighbors. I don't think this is the change the Democrats were hoping for. I'm beginning to think that the White House staff are their own worst enemies.