Absurdities that distract us from truth
Even in this age of outpatient breast enhancement and dueling in-house public polling teams, it's been a challenging week for the unembellished truth.
Start with the story of Barack Obama's forged birth certificate, a fairy tale we thought had gone away months ago. The chorus of irrationality, abetted by CNN's Lou Dobbs, has reached such a crescendo that Hawaii's state health director, Dr. Chiyome Fukino, was compelled Monday to release a statement saying, in essence, "Look -- I've seen the evidence, it's real and I'm sick of this. So go away."
But perhaps the good doctor is in on the scheme, too -- along with the now-aged clerk at the daily Honolulu Advertiser who typed in the president-to-be's brief, unremarkable birth announcement. It appeared on page B-6 of the Aug. 13, 1961, paper: "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama, 6085 Kalaniana'ole Hwy., son, Aug. 4." Meanwhile, in a humble Kenyan manger somewhere on the parched plains of northeast Africa ...
The Honolulu paper reports that gawkers still turn up at the Obamas' long-ago home, a yellow, single-story four-bedroom built in 1948. Yet these so-called birthers, having tired of the Elvis lives! and faked moon landing storylines, persist with their tale of immaculate deception. Things have gotten so absurd, I fear this recent story from the Weekly World News tabloid-turned-website (remember Batboy?) will get some traction in wingnut e-mail chains:
"The official copy of Barack Obama's birth certificate was stolen this week by Republicans wishing to halt his health care reform," it starts. Congressional Republicans, bent on holding it for ransom against further moves toward socialized medicine, "led an elite squad of commandos in a daring heist at the Honolulu hospital where the document, real or forged, was kept." Now it's with Dick Cheney, who keeps it in the safe of "his castle fortress, next to a jar containing Saddam Hussein's head and indecent pictures of Margaret Thatcher."
The Internet age has changed our lives for the better in many ways, but it has sent us down the laundry chute in many other respects. We hear complaints about the biased mainstream media, but the chances that the "forward" you just got from your bowling buddy is unvarnished, ironclad fact are pretty iffy.
On Thursday I received another example of anybody-can-do-it fantasy writing -- as did editorial page editors across the country: "Obama targets boomers for extermination," which falsely claims the health care bill before Congress calls for mandatory "end of life" counseling. In this half-century-late Twilight Zone script, the government has found the resources to visit each and every American over age 65 -- all 40 million of them -- to encourage them to check out of this underfunded, overtaxed life.
The St. Petersburg Times' 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning PoliFact team gave similar claims about mandatory government "counseling" their "pants on fire" designation for untruthfulness. Sec. 1233 of the health care bill, labeled "Advance Care Planning Consultation," does indeed explain how the government would, for the first time, require Medicare to cover the cost of end-of-life counseling sessions, including the discussion of living wills and durable powers of attorney, according to the Times.
Jon Keyserling, general counsel and vice president of public policy for the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, which endorses the provision, said the bill doesn't encourage older Americans to end their lives -- it merely frees them financially to seek out counseling, if they choose to pursue it.
What do these two absurd exaggerations have in common? Three things: They distract us from the real business of democratic participation. They are effective. And they diminish us.
It's completely legitimate, even honorable, for citizens to challenge any president's policies. But perpetuating such falsehoods creates fear and distrust that prevent us from understanding what's really at stake. In the case of Obama's "forged" birth certificate, it paints the president as a fraud and an alien so that we're less likely to listen to what he actually proposes -- and counter it with reasoned argument. In the case of the "suicide encouragement" provision, it strikes fear into the hearts of seniors -- Americans who are both vulnerable and among the likeliest to vote. Health care reform is too important an issue -- and potentially too expensive a proposition -- for us to allow the debate to be guided by falsehood and fear-mongering. But so far it has been.
Strike a blow for truth -- stop reading your e-mails for a while.
Contact Robert Price at rprice@bakersfield.com or twitter.com/stubblebuzz.
