In the politically charged battle over the proposed expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, Democratic strategists decided to tug at the public's heart stings by having twelve-year-old Graeme Frost deliver the party's on-air response to President Bush's Sept. 29 radio address. Frost was heard to say:

Hi, my name is Graeme Frost. I'm 12 years old and I live in Baltimore, Maryland. Most kids my age probably haven't heard of CHIP, the Children's Health Insurance Program. But I know all about it, because if it weren't for CHIP, I might not be here today.

CHIP is a law the government made to help families like mine afford healthcare for their kids. Three years ago, my family was in a really bad car accident. My younger sister Gemma and I were both hurt. I was in a coma for a week and couldn't eat or stand up or even talk at first. My sister was even worse.

I was in the hospital for five-and-a-half months and I needed a big surgery. For a long time after that, I had to go to physical therapy after school to get stronger. But even though I was hurt badly, I was really lucky. My sister and I both were.

My parents work really hard and always make sure my sister and I have everything we need, but the hospital bills were huge. We got the help we needed because we had health insurance for us through the CHIP program. But there are millions of kids out there who don't have CHIP, and they wouldn't get the care that my sister and I did if they got hurt. Their parents might have to sell their cars or their houses, or they might not be able to pay for hospital bills at all.

Now I'm back to school. One of my vocal chords is paralyzed so I don't talk the same way I used to. And I can't walk or run as fast as I did. The doctors say I can't play football any more, but I might still be able to be a coach. I'm just happy to be back with my friends.

I don't know why President Bush wants to stop kids who really need help from getting CHIP. All I know is I have some really good doctors. They took great care of me when I was sick, and I'm glad I could see them because of the Children's Health Program.

I just hope the President will listen to my story and help other kids to be as lucky as me. This is Graeme Frost, and this has been the Weekly Democratic Radio address.

Thanks for listening.

Within days, conservative journalists, commentators and bloggers had sought out ever bit of information available on the Frost family, and concluded that its claim to being needy enough to qualify for government-funded health care was less than convincing. The family has some investment assets, it seems, and thus had the means to acquire health insurance if it chose to do so. Or so the argument goes: the policy debate on this matter, fascinating though it may be, is beyond the scope of the Ethics Scoreboard. What is of concern here is the outraged accusations by supporters of the plan to expand SCHIP who claim that Republicans have attacked a child and were "Swiftboating" the Frosts. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was typical. "I think that the attack on this family is just breaking new ground and stooping to new lows in terms of what happens in Washington, D.C.," she told reporters. "I think it's a sad statement about how bankrupt some of these people are in their arguments against SCHIP that they attack a 12-year-old."

Undoubtedly, a lot of the rhetoric aimed the Frost's way was excessive, nasty and uncivil. But the general who gives children weapons and put them in the front lines of a marching army is 100% responsible if the kids get shot. Here the responsibility is a bit more spread out: it can be apportioned between the Democrats who came up with the idea of using…and I do mean using… Graeme, and his parents who agreed to it.

It is an unethical tactic…despicable, in fact. Apologists for the stunt argue that Republicans use wounded soldiers and others as props with some regularity, and that is true. But those props are still adults, and are old enough to be responsible for their own choices. This is not a justification for using a child as a policy position-spouting ventriloquist's dummy. Does Graeme really "know all about" SCHIP? Somehow, I doubt it. Putting words into a child's mouth, whether it is an obscene rant from YouTube toddler star "Pearl" or a ghost-written discourse on a government health program, is cowardly, an abuse of the child, and dishonest. But if politicians use a child in this way, and the child's family agrees to present itself as the face of advocacy, then the opposition has no ethical obligation to use kid gloves, stuffed animals or squirt guns when it is time for rebuttal.

No matter who's right or wrong about the future of SCHIP, it is the cynical use of Graeme as an underage combatant in the policy wars, and not the subsequent debatable critiques of his family, that qualifies as unethical.