Hundreds of inaccurate viral emails have been forwarded to me over the course of the last year.  I've cared for them, cataloged them, and saved them for posterity in my Lie Piebrary.  One thing I haven't done is build a massive database of all the email addresses I've harvested off of these emails so I could create an "enemies list" of people who purposely or inadvertently spread false information.  So I was flabbergasted when I heard that Senator John Cornyn from Texas accused the Obama White House of doing just that.  I'd like to point out to Senator Cornyn that if the Obama administration's true motive is to spy on people, they have vastly superior methods of doing so at their disposal.  Does Senator Cornyn think Obama is going to discard the Pinwale database at the NSA in favor of manually harvesting email addresses off viral emails? Did all our keyhole-class spy satellites go on the blink?  Didn't President Bush already clear the way for warrantless wiretapping?

Now, it makes perfect sense to me that folks in the White House want a heads up on new rumors about health care reform so they can address these rumors before they get legs.  Obama isn't doing anything different than he did during the campaign with his "Fight the Smears" website, or what McCain did with his "Truth Squad" website.  All fact-check sites rely on tips from everyday people who want to get to the bottom of spurious claims.  Nobody thought a thing about this process until Senator Cornyn decided to fan the flames of paranoia and give the conspiracists something new to latch on to:

By requesting that citizens send "fishy" emails to the White House, it is inevitable that the names, email addresses, IP addresses, and private speech of U.S. citizens will be reported to the White House. You should not be surprised that these actions taken by your White House staff raise the specter of a data collection program. As Congress debates health care reform and other critical policy matters, citizen engagement must not be chilled by fear of government monitoring the exercise of free speech rights.

All I can say is, "Good Lord, Senator Cornyn."  I never saw anything more shameful in my life, that a U.S. Senator would come up with such a ridiculous conspiracy theory and then issue an irresponsible statement that makes folks think their email and IP addresses are on some sort of "enemies list."  Though, it isn't so surprising if Senator Cornyn gets all his information from the sort of folks who seem to have been weaned on Weekly World News:

It appears that Mr. Eric Odom, who I'm keeping an eye on, is quite happy to jump on this hayride of delusional paranoia.  From what I've read about Mr. Odom, I think he is very smart and capable.  He is the Executive Director of the American Liberty Alliance.  I'm skeptical that he really believes in his heart that there is anything sinister going on with the White House's request for rumor alerts.  I'm just a little disgusted with Senator Cornyn, Eric Odom, and anyone else who is determined to seize on something so innocent and exploit it to further inflame the "birthers" and tea party patriots who appear to be somewhat unhinged and are proud of it.   I'm starting to think we have a couple of lying lie piers in our midst.  Slimy opportunists who prey on the goodness of others for their own political advantage make my stomach sour. 

Folks, there's lots at stake with this health care reform debate.  Let's not be fooled by double dealing charlatans, lobbyists, and front groups into believing things that are just not the case.  My granny always told me, "Don't you let nobody lie to you about nothing."  I hope you'll follow her advice.  If my granny were here today, she'd wag her finger at Senator John Cornyn and say,  "Shame on you."

UPDATE:  I just added a couple of new fact-check links for health insurance reform to "Lie Pie Quick Check."  We are all going to be swimming in pure B.S. over the course of the next few months.  I'm already tired just thinking about it.  Sigh.