FOR THOSE TOO DUMB...

...to write their own letters to the editor, moveonPAC.org has provided a helpful page that gives you a form to fill in, "talking points" and a button to push to send the resulting letter to the newspaper(s) of your choice.

Faux letters to the editor have long been used by political organization (there's even a term for it: astroturfing). Those who go along with these written-to-order letters may honestly believe what they're "writing" (or, more often, parroting), but that doesn't make the process any less dishonest.

There was a bit of a hue and cry a couple of weeks back when a similar campaign, from the right side of the American political spectrum, was revealed. Dan Gillmor at SiliconValley.com, writes:

if I were an editorial page editor I'd be watching out for &mdash and would not print &mdash letters using the wording from this page. Astroturfing should be no more acceptable from the left than the right.

Yep.

12:17:13 PM