Eric has a great post on the game I will call “lie balancing”, best known by the kind of “balancing act” the major news outlets play in saying “both sides play fast and loose with the facts”, and leave the overwhelming impression that BOTH sides are equally deceptive. I find this kind of twisting infuriating most with the debate analysts who call the Friday night debate a “tie”, when Bush tried to claim that the report about WMDs rerleased Friday actually supports what the administration has been claiming. How any observer can hear that and look at ….”reality”. and then give Bush a pass is beyond me.

Eric’s Tasty Morsels of Thought – Epistemological Relativism Runs Rampant, an essay

As a Christian, my own tradition has a long history of speaking truth to power. Unfortunately, there’s also a long history of Christians being surrogates for the violent aims of the state (the crusades, and now the “war on terror”), but I believe we can do better. Aside from being in solidarity with the poor, oppressed, and hungry, speaking the truth to power is something vital that defines what it means to be a Christian: speaking and telling the Truth.

A couple of additional major points that I want to quote from Eric’s post:

-If Bush lies a lot, then Kerry must also lie a lot because he’s a politician so make sure to bring those lies up in an effort to “balance” your story out.

-If the lying liars known as the Swift Boat Veterans for “Truth” are telling untold numbers of lies as a 527 group, then that must mean that all Democratic-funded and -leaning 527 groups who are attacking Bush must also be filled with lies and “smears” — and hey, because there are so many more Democrat-funded and -leaning 527 groups out there, that really makes a balance to this whole Swift Boat Liars situation, despite the fact that the record shows that no other Democratic 527 group has gotten anywhere near as much free air time on television from all the “news” programs showing their unfounded and thoroughly discredited commercials all while promoting their unfounded and thoroughly discredited Unfit for Command book; and despite the fact that the record shows that no other Democrat (or otherwise) 527 group has told so many bald-face lies than the Swift Boat Liars have told.

When one considers how outright deceptive the campaign promises Bush made in 2000, and then notice how the Bush administration actually did the Oppposite, and then proceeded to give those “Orwellian” names to further the decption and lull the majoity of America to sleep (including me for at least 2 years, 3 on the environment) by continuing to obscure the actual facts by continuing to use words like “common sense policy” to describe outright sell out of regulatorypositions to the actual people who lobbied for the companies who seek removal of environmental, health, and safety regulations. Give the corporations what they wanted (since they gave so much money to the campaign) and proceed to dismantle and reverse all of the advances in environmental protection put in place over the past 30 years. Of course, this is what the neoconservatives want, but they can’t reveal their real philosophy; indeed, they have to give the impression that they are doing what the majority of citizens want. This is downright sedition, and betrayal of trust, and betrayal of democracy. Thanks Eric for this thought provoking and disturbing piece.