Keller @ Large: Neither Side Seems To Care About Mediscare Myths Damage

BOSTON (CBS) - So much for the serious political debate over one of our most important budget problems some pundits predicted we were going to have after Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate.

Listen to Jon's commentary:

Instead, we have now had five full days of the most revolting distortions, smears and outright lies imaginable about Medicare, the health care lifeline for millions of seniors that even more millions of future seniors are counting on to help sustain them in their old age.

The president and vice-president have been busy explaining how Romney and Ryan want to "end" Medicare, "gut" it, and so on.

It's only a matter of time before they air some version of the infamous smear ad depicting a Ryan lookalike literally pushing grandma off a cliff.

Never mind that those claims earned the Democrats the 2011 "lie of the year"award from the Pulitzer Prize-winning website Politifact.

In response, Romney is busy expressing shock and disbelief that the president "robbed" Medicare of more than $700 billion to help pay for Obamacare, a grotesque distortion of his effort to slow the rate of spending growth by moving Medicare funds around.

I watched in despair yesterday at an assisted living center in Somerville as Democratic politicians peddled the anti-Romney Mediscare myths, only to find that some of the seniors were already plenty scared by the anti-Obama lies.

And it got me wondering about the longer-term damage to our country if these tactics wind up working, for either side, or both.

Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus is wondering the same thing.

She wrote Wednesday: "The Ryan pick could move an essential discussion forward. But I worry, as I think responsible politicians in both parties should, that it could serve instead to reaffirm the danger of the third rail."

All these campaigns care about is getting to fifty percent plus one in November.

But their carelessness – and their apparent lack of adult supervision – could make collateral damage of the rest of us.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.