It’s great to see a Republican standing up to misinformation about health care reform:

Sen. Tom Coburn, a staunch conservative from Oklahoma, is doing what seems almost unthinkable in this polarized political climate: Defending his Democratic colleagues from critics at Fox News.

At a town hall meeting, Coburn suggested that a woman who said “they can put us in prison” for not obtaining health insurance under the health care reform bill is misinformed.

“The intention is not to put anybody in jail,” he said. “That makes for good TV news on Fox but that isn’t the intention.”

My research with Jason Reifler shows that corrections by media sources frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the most susceptible ideological group and sometimes make them worse. In this case, I’m hoping that Coburn’s reputation as a conservative will make his correction more credible to other conservatives.

Update 4/8 11:25 AM: Along similar lines, Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) has an article in RedState that could be effective in alleviating conservative misgivings about filling out Census forms.