Truthiness Will Tell
Mark Twain once quipped (he was nothing if not a skilled quipper) that a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. This year’s presidential election sure seems to be proving that adage.
A recent Washington Post survey found that 51 percent of respondents believe Barack Obama would raise taxes — despite the fact his tax plan exempts Americans who earn less than $250,000 annually (which I bet — call me crazy — includes most of us).
Then there’s the bizarre but brilliantly insidious fact that McCain’s running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, continues insisting on the campaign trail that she scrapped the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” Her claim has already been widely discredited – Palin supported the pork barrel project and only changed tune after it had become a national laughingstock (Alaska kept the $220 million-plus it had received from the feds for it) — but that hasn’t impacted her stump speech.
Similarly, both McCain and Palin continue to crow that the governor sold the state’s “luxury” airplane on eBay and made a profit. Well, it’s sorta true — in the sense that the plane didn’t sell on eBay and ultimately was sold at a loss.
It all leads me back to the incontrovertible fact that Stephen Colbert, of Comedy Central’s “Colbert Report” is a bona fide genius and perhaps the most insightful social commentator of his generation.
His introduction of the word “truthiness” in 2005 seemed like clever writing at the time, but it was prescient in a way that makes Nostradamus look like a poor man’s Jimmy the Greek.
– Chase
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Chase, you do realize who’s bandwith you’re posting on, right? (and I do mean Right.) Have you read it’s editorials? Have you seen the headlines it headlines? Have you read the comments from that overly-severe troll lurking under the bridge of every self-serving headline? Your voice is the tree falling in the woods.
Jello Biafra said: “Don’t hate the media, become the media.”
Well becoming the media takes money. Money comes from the same people who decry regulation, taxes and big government but rejoice when government (and our taxes) bails them out of their deregulated bad deals and real-estate boondoggles of their own making. Guess who they vote for? Guess where they put their money to get others to vote for? Certainly not in media that calls them to task. I have no trust that the truth will be heard above the din of noise. Truthiness and money win. Most of the rest of us lose.