The White House has now acknowledged that people across the country received unsolicited e-mails from the administration last week about health care reform. Those unsolicited e-mails have been adding fuel to the fire started when the administration asked citizens to forward "fishy" e-mails they received that were critical of the president's health care reform legislation. Many people felt those forwarded e-mails were becoming the foundation for some kind of enemies list - a list of e-mail addresses of administration opponents who could be illegally targeted with political propaganda (or worse) by the White House.

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First in a written statement, White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the White House hopes those who received the e-mails without signing up for them were not "inconvenienced" by the messages and claimed the problem is with third-party groups that placed the recipients' names on the distribution list. (source)

Then on Monday night White House online director Macon Phillips said in a blog posting that independent groups (which he didn't name) had signed up their members to receive regular White House updates about Obama's projects, priorities and speeches. (source)

I guess if John Edwards could get some poor sap to confess to fathering Edwards' child by Edwards' mistress then anything's possible in politics today.

Coincidentally (or not) the address set up by the White House for people to report "fishy" information about health care reform became inactive hours after the White House acknowledgement. No longer can American citizens report their neighbors' anti-government speech to flag@whitehouse.gov. But fear not, comrades! E-mails sent to that address will be automatically responded to with the message "We are now accepting your feedback about health insurance reform via: http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck." (source)

Here's a reality check for the White House: You can douse a dead fish in perfume and wrap it in today's newspaper but it's still going to stink.