"Mr. Vice President, I have to inform you: Your pants are on fire."

Via Geoff Arnold, Jon Stewart Nails Cheney In An Outright Lie.

Why is it that the "Daily Show" on Comedy Central seems to be the only "news" outlet that calls a spade a spade? Most of the traditional press chooses to continue to give the administration the benefit of doubt and rarely calls them on their mendacity.

"The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al-Qaeda," U.S. President George W. Bush told reporters last week, is "because there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda."

While chasing this and other recent administration faux pas down on the web, I came across this link on the Harpers Magazine web site that provides a timeline of the administration's ongoing campaign on the truth.

The one that struck me in the context of recent news is the one from Feb 22

Health and Human Services officials admitted that a report on racial and ethnic disparities in health care was altered to make it seem more upbeat. "There was a mistake made," said Secretary Tommy Thompson.

Hold on, do I detect a pattern at play here? Only recently was the State Dept. called on its report on terrorism in which there was a "mistake made" as admitted by Colin Powell. Mere coincidence?

Or, how about the administration officials running around the country taking credit for programs when the president had actually reduced their funding or cut them altogether.

Is it just me or does this have the feel of Orwell's 1984? We are engaged in an ongoing war against a non-existant foe (how the hell can you engage in war against a tactic?!?). Even worse, the administration has and continues to justify the war in Iraq as being the centerpeice in the "war against terrorism" despite the increasinly overwhelming evidence that there were no ties between al Quaeda and Iraq. We have an administration that uses doublethink to name bills that it puts before congress (the Patriot Act, No Child Left Behind, Healthy Forest Initiative, etc.). We have an administration that "rectifies" news as did Winston in his job for the Ministry of Truth by telling us that they never said or did what they in fact said or did, repeatedly in the hope that by simply repeating a lie, that it will become the perceived truth.

I can only hope that a majority of americans will see through this administration's mendacity and vote them out of office.