I don't want to pat myself on the back too much, or gloat, or anything like that. Well, OK. Yes, I am patting myself and gloating profusely about my scooping of Frank Rich's wonderful Sunday Column. All you needed to do was read my diary called "The Truth" on Friday.
Links, and quotes, below the flip.
The Truth
I followed the James Frey/Oprah story with great interest. Why? Not because I could give a shit about the lying, plaigarizing author. I saw it because it showed how unfazed the American public has become to lying.
In this world of having too much information to absorb, the key is no longer to be truthful, just like Frey and Oprah. The key is to stick to your guns, and wait out the news cycle. And that's what the Bush Administration is doing.
Clearly the strategy of the administration is to keep the firehose jacked up to the maximum, keeping all the talking points and the national agenda clogged with their own issues. Does it matter if they're right or wrong, legal or illegal? Not at all.
Case in point: Did we really not know that Dick Cheney was going to defend the administration on secret and illegal wiretapping? Of course not. Cheney simply delivers what everyone is expecting him to say. He's not saying it to win over friends. He's saying it to project power, and to give the illusion that the Administration (some, like me would say that he) is in control of the situation. He's projecting the agenda of lies, bullshit, dictatorship, and bullshit.
It's not a national "debate". It's one side, saying what we expect them to say, waiting out the news cycle. They are counting on the fact that there's always a new outrage next week. Maybe someone will expose themselves in the Super Bowl, or maybe there will be a new disqualification in "American Idol". They know there's no attention span.
Truthiness 101: From Frey to Alito
As Oprah Winfrey, the ultimate arbiter of our culture, has made clear, no one except pesky nitpickers much cares whether Mr. Frey's autobiography is true or not, or whether it sits on a fiction or nonfiction shelf at Barnes & Noble. Such distinctions have long since washed away in much of our public life. What matters most now is whether a story can be sold as truth, preferably on television.
What's remarkable is how much fictionalization plays a role in almost every national debate. Even after a big humbug is exposed as blatantly as Professor Marvel in "The Wizard of Oz" - FEMA's heck of a job in New Orleans, for instance - we remain ready and eager to be duped by the next tall tale. It's as if the country is living in a permanent state of suspension of disbelief.
Democrats who go berserk at their every political defeat still don't understand this. They fault the public for not listening to their facts and arguments, as though facts and arguments would make a difference, even if the Democrats were coherent. It's the power of the story that always counts first, and the selling of it that comes second. Accuracy is optional. The Frey-like genius of the right is its ability to dissemble with a straight face while simultaneously mustering the slick media machinery and expertise to push the goods. It not only has the White House propaganda operation at its disposal, but also an intricate network of P.R. outfits and fake-news outlets that are far more effective than their often hapless liberal counterparts.
So, Frank, should I sue or what?