Disheartened at by the latest distortion of facts in politics (what else is new?), Rex W. Huppke of Chicago Tribune came to the conclusion that Facts ain't what it used to be. In fact (ahem), the only logical conclusion is that Facts has died so Rex wrote the obituary:
Whatever your political conviction, Rex's satirical piece is still a fun read: LinkOver the centuries, Facts became such a prevalent part of most people's lives that Irish philosopher Edmund Burke once said: "Facts are to the mind what food is to the body."
To the shock of most sentient beings, Facts died Wednesday, April 18, after a long battle for relevancy with the 24-hour news cycle, blogs and the Internet. Though few expected Facts to pull out of its years-long downward spiral, the official cause of death was from injuries suffered last week when Florida Republican Rep. Allen West steadfastly declared that as many as 81 of his fellow members of theU.S. House of Representatives are communists.
Facts held on for several days after that assault — brought on without a scrap of evidence or reason — before expiring peacefully at its home in a high school physics book. Facts was 2,372.
RIP good buddy. We'll always have "what did the president know and when did he know it?".
Facts is dead because people on all sides only chose to believe/acknowledge those particular facts with which they agreed. Anything that did not fit into their greater good was dismissed. Different sides simply dismissed different facts. Once the last fact was tossed onto the garbage heap of history, the funeral dirge began. And, in the name of the end justifying the means, this means that facts had no place in this world.