Freedom of expression and truth

The health care debate has given rise to a number of spurious claims, as sides passionately cling to their views.
The most infamous certainly was Sarah Palin's "death panels" assertion. Jon Stewart did an artful job taking on another seller of that spin on the proposed legislation.
The White House got into an interesting kerfuffle over an effort to get people to root out "fishy" information that they could then try to debunk. The plan was a pretty commonplace blogosphere approach. The theory goes: the more eyes watching facts and working on verifying them, the more likely truth will have a chance to emerge.
But what if those eyes are being asked to watch by the government? What does that do to your constitutionally protected freedoms? Was the White House asking people to rat out their friends and family, a la McCarthyism? Or trying to get real answers out into the public sphere in response to flat-out lies? Dig around for updates to this story. What did the administration decide to do?

Vermont Bids Ben Stein Adieu

Ben Stein was supposed to be the commencement speaker at the University of Vermont, but he withdrew when the pick grew controversial.
Stein endorses theories of "intelligent design" and criticizes evolution theories. This rankles many scientists, some of Vermont's academics included.
Does Stein have a right to his opinion? Does he have a right to air it at public university's graduation? What if his remarks had nothing at all to do with intelligent design, should he still have been controversial? What is the role of of a public forum?

War on Words

Read an interesting piece in the New York Times this morning about yet another congressional ballyhoo over media comments on the war. This time, it's politicians on the left attacking Rush Limbaugh for comments about soldiers. Last month, it was the right lashing out against moveon.org for the "General Betray Us" ad.
A thought-provoking line:
The back and forth on the Petraeus advertisement and, now, over Mr. Limbaugh’s remarks, illustrates how both parties are turning miscues into fodder in the run up to the 2008 elections, particularly in the absence of serious legislative accomplishment when it comes to the war.
Does this kind of debate serve the electorate well? Should a free society attack commentators like Limbaugh when they're doing what they're paid to do, comment? Do we strip comments of their context when controversies like this catch fire? Do organizations like moveon.org add to debate or make it more shallow?