A serious question. What's behind this "report your neighbors against Obamacare" thing?

[Bucky]

My journey down into the mildewy depths of wingnut thinking...

I watched this painful video of Victoria Jackson denouncing the president's communist ways, such as there being a place where you can go to WhiteHouse.gov and "report your neighbors for being against Obamacare." I wanted to figure out where this sort of bizarre exaggeration came from.

I googled around a bit and found some snarky right wing blogs making sarcastic references to "[email protected]" where you report such things. But the search parameters were so vague that I only got crap, plus I couldn't find anything on Snopes. After some more digging around I finally found the White House webpage Facts Are Stubborn Things that contains the following request...

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 [email protected].

I assume they're building a database of email addresses to send counterarguments to. Is there more to it than this? Is the White House compiling email addresses an appropriate use of public resources? I can see the pros and cons on this. If you're paranoid about what the president is doing, this could seem pretty sinister. If Bush did this, for instance, I'd assume the worst. At the same time, it also seems like a good step in preparing a counterattack on disinformation. And it's not like every viagra peddler and wrongly jailed Nigerian millionaire in the world doesn't already have my email address.

On the third hand, now that healthcare reform has occurred, it seems like gathering those emails and disinfo was a huge waste of time. Won't it be enough to let the fairly benign and limited effects of the law speak for themselves? Thoughts?