Over the past few weeks, the media have been reporting that members of Congress have been encountering rowdy and, at times, hostile crowds when they conduct local meetings and “town halls” about the various proposals to reform medical insurance in this country. For the most part, the reception that lawmakers are receiving seems to be something they dislike, and much of the media has tended to see it as part of a plot orchestrated by right-wing politicians and political “agents” to defeat the current majority’s efforts and, thereby, harm the president’s popularity and poll results. One senator has gone so far as to say that he will not attend “unscripted” events if he is to be subjected to such heckling and rowdy crowds.

I have to admit that I find this senator’s comments to border on insulting. It seems to me that heckling, rowdy crowds, even “orchestrated dissent,” so long as it does not involve violence or illegal activity, is the very essence of the American political tradition. If a politician doesn’t like to be heckled or face difficult questions from political opponents, then he or she ought to find a different job.

I have written more than once in these pages that I wish that politics could be conducted with more civility. I certainly wish the media would report honestly on issues of great national significance like health care reform. I think it is extremely sad and telling that hardly anybody actually reads legislation being proposed in Congress, including those who are obligated to vote on it.

I understand why, having looked at more than my share of both state and federal legislation. It usually is badly written and full of jargon, technical terms and mystifying cross-references, as well as being so long that nobody who works for a living has the time to read and understand it. The fact that legislation so often is written by lawyers working for special interest groups whose primary purpose is to obscure rather than to clarify the issues doesn’t make things much better. But the solution to the problem of incomprehensible legislation written by special-interest groups and then misinterpreted by virtually the entire media is not to stifle debate and certainly not for queasy-stomached politicians to hide from their own constituents.

I think that what this country needs is a not-for-profit, nonpartisan group, unaffiliated with government, political parties and corporate interests, that could read and analyze every significant piece of legislation and provide an honest and unbiased analysis and commentary on the legislation. Such a group could then post both the text of all bills and their own analyses and commentaries on the Web and thereby make them available to the American public. If such a group could be formed it would function rather like the old “Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.”

If we had such analyses of important legislation, and if the public were able to trust the honesty and accuracy of these analyses, then “loaded” questions or hecklers making false statements could be handled easily. More importantly, the American public could hold its politicians responsible for the legislation they support.

As it is now, it seems as though the proverbial “fog of war” has settled over Washington, D.C., and has become the far more dangerous “fog of politics.” It is time for the American people to demand that this fog be dispersed and that the transparency we have been promised over and over again become reality.