There's a reason why NFL coaches guard their playbooks the way that the warrant officer guards the nuclear "football" briefcase wherever the president goes. If you have an effective strategy, you spring it by surprise.You don't throw it across the pages of, say, the New York Times. You spring it as a surprise. Maybe the Republicans are smarter than I think they are, but this move seems very much like a well-developed bluff.

The effort has its roots in a strategy developed last spring, when House Republican leaders - plagued by party divisions that were thwarting legislative accomplishments - refocused the House's committees on oversight rather than on the development of new policies. Rob Borden, a general counsel to Representative Darrell Issa of California, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, moved to a newly created position that reported jointly to Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader. Mr. Borden's task was to coordinate and monitor oversight activities across separate committees to make sure they are not overlapping or undercutting one another. That aggressive campaign, which produced numerous hearings on the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, as well as on I.R.S. scrutiny of conservative groups, is now increasingly consumed by the health care fight. House Republican leaders empowered four committees - oversight, Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and the Workforce - to take the lead, with support from other panels, such as the Science and Homeland Security Committees, which have examined computer security.

The reason the probes into the IRS and into Benghazi, Benghazi!,BENGHAZI! came to nothing was not the lack of coordination between various committees in the Republican House. The reason the investigations flopped was that the scandals were both fake and Darrell Issa, a clownish hack who shouldn't be trusted with a butter knife. (It might have been nice if the Times, while donating several dozen column inches to the Republicans so they can lay out their battle plan, had acknowledged this, but never mind.)

Mr. Cantor and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, another member of the Republican leadership, have also leaned on all 231 House Republicans. A 17-page "House Republican Playbook" walks members through "messaging tools" like talking points, social media tactics and "digital fliers"; details lines of attack; offers up a sample opinion article for local newspapers; and provides an extensive timeline on the health care law and an exhaustive list of legislative responses that have gone nowhere.

Page 15: Make Sure Gohmert Is Medicated.

A message of the week is presented to the Republican members at the beginning of each week, Ms. McMorris Rodgers said. A "Call to Action" email chain distributes relevant breaking news. A new website, gop.gov/yourstory, is collecting anecdotes from each member. The goal, according to Ms. McMorris Rodgers, is to use all the "Republican voices we have in the House, the media markets in all the districts we represent, to take our message all over the country." "It penetrates," she said. "It's powerful."

Contact your physician for an anecdote lasting four hours or more.

Republicans have gone to the floor of the House and the Senate to tell constituent stories of soaring premiums or yawning new deductibles. But on Wednesday, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released a report showing that health care spending had grown by 1.3 percent since 2010, the year the health care law passed. That is the lowest rate on record for any three-year period and less than a third of the average since 1965, according to the White House.

Well, all right, then.

This may work. The American public has demonstrated a profound sweet-tooth for bullshit storytelling, and the Times has shown itself willing to run informercials for the new campaign. But, for me, this looks like wrapping your battle plan around some cigars and leaving them in a field for the other side to find. (Take that, Bateman!) In any case, it's certainly a full employment plan for fact-checkers.

Oh yeah, there's nothing in there about actually getting people health-care, either.

Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io