It occurred to me this morning as I was reading Politico.com about the Sunday talk shows, where Axelrod again said all we need is to know who is making all these campaign ads. It struck me that the problem with this approach to improving our political discourse is that it allows the consumer of the ads to discount the argument itself by deflecting attention to the source of the argument. In effect for any campaign ad, it becomes possible to say "consider the source" and then to ignore the substance of the ad. This works both ways. If an ad is sponsored by a liberal group, the consumer is able to say that it is only the liberal point of view, and then ignore the argument. Conversely, if it is a conservative group that sponsors the ad, the consumer is able to say that it is only the conservative point of view, and ignore it. In either case the consumer is encouraged to ignore the substance of the argument, and in general to ignore the discourse itself. In effect we praise and promote political ignorance or non-involvement.
It seems to me that the consumer of political advertising should rather be encouraged to evaluate the substance of the argument, regardless of who is sponsoring the ad. To do so may in fact even require that the source of the argument not be known. In any case, the value of the argument should be more the focus of comment about the ad than its source. To pretend that knowing the source of the ad is going to somehow make the ads more fair and responsible is a stretch, and amounts to no more than saying don't trust the ads because we don't know where they are coming from. We can know whether the substance of the ad is valid and important or not without knowing where it came from.
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