Besides being unrelentingly partisan and awfully casual with written English, Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer usually is pretty careful about what he says, even if he’s careless about how he says it. But yesterday he sent out a fund-raising e-mail that, to use the polite term, distorts the current debate over health care and its nasty little sub-issue, abortion.

Here’s what Greer wrote:

Friends,

We have all seen and heard countless news stories, television interviews and advertisements regarding President Obama’s plan for a government-run health care system. It’s hard to keep track of what the bill actually does, especially since most lawmakers, like President Obama, haven’t read the massive piece of legislation, and other leading Democrats, including Florida Gubernatorial Candidate Alex Sink, won’t take a position on it. But I read something today that is worth sharing.

Today the Associated Press reported that the health care plan currently supported by President Obama and the Democrats would allow for taxpayer funded abortions. As the father of four children, I can’t imagine living in a nation where citizens willfully allow their tax dollars to fund abortion. The fact that liberal lawmakers and media pundits have ignored this portion of the legislation is deeply disturbing and has reaffirmed my belief that we must join together to put a stop to it.

He then proceeds to solicit contributions to protect “our tax dollars from funding abortion.”

Greer doesn’t bother to provide a link to the AP story because he doesn’t really want his readers to read it, preferring that they simply take his word for it that the Obama health care plan lifts all restrictions on federal funding of abortions. As is typical in these situations where Republicans reduce the most complex issues down to a sound bite that their mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging dittoheads can parrot, it’s a lot more complicated than that.

The article, titled “Gov’t insurance would allow coverage of abortion,” is, despite the headline, seems to be a pretty comprehensive and balanced piece. It provides some insight into the process of writing such a massive piece of legislation: there is agreement, disagreement, discussion, compromise and intractability on the issue among members of congress. Lawmakers are depicted as trying to get a workable piece of law that protects federal funding of abortion at its current level — in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is endangered — without opening the gates to cover all abortions everywhere.

The fact is, federal dollars currently fund abortions under very specific conditions, but facts like that don’t inspire largess.

Of course, if you’re Jim Greer seeking to shock some Republican loyalists into writing checks, you need read no further than the article’s headline to know all you need to know — and you need to tell — about the topic. It may not be lying exactly, but it certainly is not telling the truth.