(click on ads for more details)

The Authority (Part 1)
by Gordon Francis Corbett

    When I was about eight years old, I showed my mother a tan translucent scab on the top of my right hand.  As it did not hurt, I displayed it with complete equanimity and aplomb.  To my surprise, she swiftly rushed me home, picked open the scab, exposed the wound, and applied iodine.

    As she was my mother, and a registered nurse besides, I figured that her alarm had to be well-founded, and so I became fearful.

    Years later, something vaguely similar occurred all across America.

    After Matt Drudge disclosed Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, the news companies said that there was no proof of Clinton's involvement.  Clinton told the American people and a grand jury that he had done nothing.  Some lawyers interviewed on camera said that Clinton had to be telling the truth, because if he had lied to a grand jury, he could be removed from office.  Then, we learned about Monica's infamous blue dress.

    I watched Tom Brokaw during those first few days.  His voice betrayed considerable alarm;  and, I began to hope that Clinton was on his way out.  Then, over the next few days, Brokaw began to introduce news items that pushed a new line:  Clinton's dalliance with Lewinsky was merely "personal."

    You and I know the rest.  We also know that many of our friends and neighbors "bought" the news companies' interpretation.

    Why did they let newsreaders tell them what to think?

    I suggest that the answer is similar to why, fifty years ago, I became fearful only after my mother did:  they regarded those people, and the "experts" they interviewed, as "authorities."

    Authorities, my foot.  They were intermediaries passing on Clinton's lies.

    To see through other publicity men's lies, we must become our own authorities.

    More in Part II.