4,000 Soldiers Come Home In Body Bags Because of Monica Lewinsky

One thing that's been proven by the recent kerfuffle manufactured by the wingnuts concerning The Right Reverend Wright is that the truth doesn't matter in terms of what's acceptable and what's controversial.

Here's an example of something that could be said that could be proven true beyond the shadow of a doubt:

When Republicans are elected, people die.

And by that I mean more people than would have to, or more people than if Democrats are elected -- either way. From foreign policy to automobile safety, global warming, the EPA, the FDA, gun control, and the tobacco industry, more lives are lost when Republicans are in charge. There just isn't any way around it. But you can't say something like that, for obvious reasons.

If enough people are unwilling to give the truth a high priority, or are even a little bit curious about what is true and what is false, then it doesn't do much good to point the truth out. I'm not sure which came first, the chicken or the egg here, but -- and this will not be a revelation to anyone here -- it's a tried-and-true tactic from the right wing to take advantage of people's apathy towards truth to distort it routinely; it's about the end, not the means, obviously.

My own line about holding politicians from either party equally accountable for their actions (especially where the impeachment of presidents is involved) is, "Nobody came home in a body bag because of Monica Lewinsky". And that's the truth. (If your reaction is "What about Bosnia?", you're not paying attention.)

But maybe I was wrong; yesterday Chris Matthews asserted this on MSNBC's "Morning Joe":

"4,000 people are dead now because of decisions made by politicians like the Clintons."

I suspect he'll get away with saying this. Somehow, although you can't blame Herbert Hoover for the Great Depression, you can blame Hillary Clinton for Iraq. Is it me, or have we taken one more step on this long march towards establishing that the moon is made of green cheese, two plus two equals five, up is down, black is white, and the sun rises in the West?