1984, Here We Are

For anyone who has read George Orwell's futuristic (written in 1948) and frightening novel about an authoritarian government that specialized in spinning lies as truth and vice versa, the new administration is providing a chilling real-life counterpart to Orwell's fictional version. If you have not read it yet, I would put 1984 in your "must-read" category.

Last week, the new president and signer of the most pork-laden spending bill in the nation's history stood in front of a group of U.S. mayors and told them with a straight face that they would be "called out" if they were shown to have misspent any of the stimulus monies that came their way. The irony of this would not have been missed by the media if a Republican had uttered something that demonstrated such a glaring case of cognitive dissonance. However, Obama is getting a free ride the breadth of which must be making even Bill Clinton envious. The impeached one took it upon himself to provide a rare "critique" this side of Limbaugh/Hannity by advising Obama to speak in more positive tones about the ailing economy. That's what passes for criticism in Democrat circles among themselves.

On the other hand, if the drug store tabloids are to be believed (probably not), ex-president George W. Bush is holed up alone at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, binge-drinking and in a state of paranoia that Obama is out to get him for alleged "war crimes" and so-called Constitutional violations that the Left foamed at the mouth about for years. If there is any shred of truth to these claims about the mental and emotional state of the former president, then these are indeed grimmer times than we can even imagine. And although Obama has gone on the record that it's time to move forward, not backward, implicitly taking Bush off the hook, he's also gone on the record on other issues that were eventually reversed or shown to be false (Tom Daschle, Roland Burris, no earmarks in the bill, etc.).

The status of Obama as messiah and Bush as pariah says a lot about what the truth means these days in America-not much. Whatever his failings were, Bush would score far higher on the truth meter than the current White House occupant. Even Richard Nixon was accorded some small measure of sympathy when he contracted life-threatening phlebitis after his resignation in 1974. But, in these more mean-spirited times, Bush has been chewed up and spat out by a hate-filled press corps and other political enemies. The question is, as the Obama lies and deceptions mount, will there ever be a tipping point for the drive-by media? A media that are so fawning in their adoration that Nightline host Terry Moran (his name apparently is misspelled with an "a" instead of an "o") made the outrageous statement that Obama actually had to "descend" from where he was to the Oval Office. If that were indeed the case, we could only wish mightily that he return to that higher place.