My dinner with Fox

O most pernicious woman!
O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!
My tables—meet it is I set it down
That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain

-Hamlet-


I had dinner with some boating friends Thursday evening. All retired engineers with advanced degrees who have had important careers. It's probably safe to guess that they are intelligent. All couldn't resist telling me how terrible it was the way the media were treating Poor Little Sarah and wasn't it unforgivable that the Liberals were sending planeloads of people to Alaska to dig up "dirt" on Poor Little Sarah. Wasn't the courage and poise of Poor Little Sarah, just remarkable? Didn't she tell the Liberals off?

I managed to mumble something about the dozen papers I read every day gushing nearly as much as the stadium full of drunken delegates did and that the only thing she really told was a pack of lies. Isn't a convincing liar more dangerous than a bumbler? I don't know how much more I can take. Of course to cite any source, verifiable or otherwise other than Fox is to provoke the hands over the ears Liberaliberaliberal chant. It reminds me very much of the films I used to watch as a psychology student before I decided dealing with the insane wasn't for me.

Of Course, FactCheck.org and AP have shown in detail that virtually every word from this campaign has been a lie, whether it's been to praise their own wonderfulness or to decry the perfidy of the Democrats. FactCheck.org has a summary of what John has been slinging, and I earlier referenced an AP summary of Poor Little Sarah's flim-flam, but at this point perhaps there's no point in bothering. If it's coming from the Republicans, it's a lie and besides, all the proof in the world will not affect the programming of the possessed and the demented voters. It might as well be true anyway.

It's not so much the whoppers I worry about, it's the little things, the little embellishments and half truths that cement the whole into one huge concrete crock. Take McCain's swooning praise for the governor who put the executive jet up for sale on eBay and made a profit. Yes, that's the same Poor Little Sarah who left Wasilla with a $3000 per capita debt when she slithered into the governorship. But you have to admit it sounds great even though it isn't true. It failed to sell on eBay and was sold through a broker at a loss.

There is a difference between a profit and loss. A president should know what the difference is.

Of course there's a difference between the truth and "truthiness" as Colbert would call the plausible but untrue little statements. The would-be president probably knows it and apparently doesn't care.

Watch that smile!