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The Associated Press, which tries to keep its reported words in some order and with some semblance of truth, found some testimony from Dr. Julie Gerberding, who is the director of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It had been edited by a Bush henchman. So when she talked about the effects of climate, much of her speech was left out, along with the conclusion that “the public health effects of climate change remain largely unaddressed. CDC considers climate change a serious public health concern.”

Dr. Gerberding said her speech was OK. Others in the CDC said the edited testimony was “eviscerated.” Of course this is just one of many instances of the Bush word wizards making sensible science into treacle. Sure Bush wants his people to be on his side and follow his lead, but it does become more difficult for him in the realm of science because science is factual and that is simply not Bush’s forte.

So it must be vastly modified, “redacted” if not changed outright, and the United States is supposed to take the revised version as truth, and actually believe it, but it is simply Bush doctrine, solid information edited into gobbledygook. Our official science is, therefore, worthless.

Ah, but there is even better stuff.

California recently had breathtaking brushfires covering 120,000 acres and displacing 10,000 people. This was no Katrina, no repeat of taking five days to get any federal help to Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Federal Emergency Management Agency people showed up and state and local authorities were there helping. Celebrity Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was hopping through the flames in a helicopter saving people. Everything worked perfectly.

So some people held a press conference.

But there was just one minor flaw; it was Federal Emergency Management Agency people who wanted the conference, and they did not want to put up with those taxing reporter’s questions about what equipment or firefighters or airplanes were doing what, where and when.

So, how to handle it?

Just have FEMA employees be the reporters and pretend to conduct a press conference with FEMA’s second in command, Vice Admiral Harvey E. Johnson. And this is what was presented to the American public: FEMA people asked FEMA’s chief exactly the questions that he wanted to answer. Then they attempted to disseminate the false newscast as though it were a real event.

Immediately after the real press got the news that this was a set up, apologies flew quickly from the White House and FEMA. White House sources said this was not how business is done. But George Bush has zero credibility in this arena. He is the president who has had his audiences screened to be certain all the people in the given hall are dedicated Republicans, and preferably dedicated Bush supporters. Therefore when he is shown addressing a respectful and responsive crowd, America is given a false image. This is, quite simply and straightforwardly, propaganda.

In the recent FEMA imbroglio, Administration Press Secretary Dana Perino said that FEMA just wanted to get the information to the public. Ah, so simple and good hearted intent! But hold on here; who was it that thought up the idea of putting on a staged conference? Who, exactly, came up with this idea of staging a press conference with chosen FEMA employees who were willing to participate in such a charade, and what was the order of thought here?

This is important because it seems that quite a number of people in the upper echelons of FEMA went along with this. There was quite a number of fake reporters. And the Vice Admiral clearly wanted to see this scenario played out, too. So this was not some half baked concept. In Orwellian newspeak, this was supposed to be government creating the “truth” on its own and broadcasting it as network news: there were a number of television networks carrying it live.

Sadly, it seems there was a whole group of people who thought this was all right, that it was acceptable in today’s America. George Orwell wouldn’t be proud to see it, but would feel justified in noting that he had tried to warn the western world of its internal pitfalls. As it has been said before, by prominent American patriots, ‘this nation can never be destroyed from without, it can only be destroyed from within.’

The policies of George Bush and his administration officials are profoundly wrong. They display a basic misunderstanding of America. Government does not, can not, should not control news. Any news directed by government is by definition propaganda. It can be nothing else.

So letting FEMA broadcast its self-created newscast as it sees fit is dangerous in the extreme; it opens the door to cynicism and mistrust among the more knowledgeable and aware segments of the public, and pits them against the more gullible. It is a mechanism that has been tried and effectively tested and proven by dictators of fascistic and communistic intent over the past 100 years.

It is a way to undermine the public’s expectations from real news, produced by real reporters and overseen by editors. It is a way to undermine trust in reports of government actions and real-time events that have been subjected to questions and investigation by professionals who have only the truth as a goal.

When government reports the news, its loyalty is not toward its people but toward its higher officials.

American colonists, who never dreamed of televisions and personal computers, were smart enough to know that the press had to be separate, independent and never act as a shill for any government. They wrote it in the very First Amendment: free press. They came from Europe, and they knew what resulted from government propaganda.

No free press, no freedom; it is as simple as that.

Still, a whole group of FEMA employees thought it would be perfectly fine to fake news and get away with it. They botched it so badly that it was only hidden for just a little while. But that doesn’t alleviate anything; they tried to make a permanent record and simply failed. One can wonder how they thought it would pass muster, given the breadth and diversity of the American press, but it is important to keep in mind that Mr. Bush has succeeded in passing off scripted ‘town hall’ and ‘meet and greet’ events as examples of spontaneous public support

If this were an administration with an allegiance to American ideals, the White House would lead an investigation into how this latest FEMA fiasco came to be a reality. Such a traditional White House would strive to train its people, and show everyone working for the government, that they cannot impersonate the press, that they must never do anything that could undermine the average Americans trust in the Constitutional precepts of the nation.

Of course this White House won’t do that investigation because they believe otherwise. For Bush and company, news is not real; it must be manipulated to an end that meets the Bush government’s goals.

The same goes for science, religion, wars, and so on. All these things are tools to be used, to be considered malleable, to be shaped according to the needs of the government; they are not realities to be encountered; they are pawns.

Bush has used the fake-news press corps before, of course. In Iraq, the White House paid writers and broadcasters to ply the airwaves with American ‘news’ designed to win supporters. Well, one might reach and say, that is just part of any war; all governments seek to control the flow of news during wartime. But nowhere, in all of America’s struggles in all past wars, was there any such concerted effort to buy off or contravene the truth as has been seen in the Orwellian administration of George W. Bush.

Perhaps the most classic irony is that America was trying to teach democracy to the Iraqi people; a newspaper is life’s blood to a democracy, real news is crucial. But again, all of this is understandable when it is finally recognized that George Bush is the enemy of plain truth.

It is his direst foe.

Mr. Bush changes scientists’ news and views, allows FEMA to play reporters and pays a fake press corps in Iraq. For George Bush and his partner, Richard Cheney, and their administrative cohorts, nothing is real except what they intend.

11/1/07