Health care reform is a hot topic right now. It's complicated and sometimes difficult to follow. It's highly controversial, with passions running high on both sides. Whatever passes, if anything passes, will affect a lot of Americans in profound ways for a long time.

So I would expect a lot of letters to the editor on the subject – just not quite as many as we have been getting, a number of which, to be charitable, are suspicious.

It popped up first on the pro-reform front. We started getting scores of letters, sometimes 10 and 20 in a single day, all very similar. They were short – one or two paragraphs usually – just the way we like them. They were well written and to the point. They each addressed a different issue – and one issue per letter, again, just the way newspapers prefer their letters. The letters all had the same style, but not quite the same language. Most came from people we'd never seen letters from before.

These were not, in other words, the spontaneous, heartfelt responses of people who had been sitting around waiting for reform all their lives only to be overwhelmed with gratitude that somebody was, by God, finally doing something. This was a well-organized, polished and, if I may say so, cynical attempt to sway public opinion by making it seem that most decent Americans had already made up their minds. Since President Obama's Chicago-trained operatives are famous for this kind of manipulation, such a “grass roots” eruption came as no big surprise.

The next phase was a bit more interesting. Somebody with an ounce of sense in the Republican Party caught on to what the pro-reform side was doing and decided to retaliate. So then we started getting scores of anti-reform letters – again, short, precise, focused, articulate. By golly, we were supposed to think, we were wrong about decent Americans erupting in demand of reform right now! Clearly, they have been deathly afraid of reform all their lives and now finally have the chance to say so.

My advice to both sides: Don't bother. I know you don't care if you waste our time, but maybe you care about wasting your own. We're not going to toss out all those suspicious letters. But they're going to the bottom of the pile, OK? We'll get in the ones we can, but nobody is going to lose any sleep over it.

If, however, you have an honest, personal opinion about reform, please share it. Even if your letter is long and rambling or not quite on point, it will go much nearer the top of the pile. We're not naïve enough to suppose our letters column is never used cynically. But we're still old-fashioned enough to want it to reflect public opinion, not shape it.