So I'm watching the repeats of the Sunday "talk shows" - you know, where politicians come to lie and commentators show up to help them along - and between flips over to NCIS and Create, and this entire matter has me a bit unnerved. Clearly someone is right and someone is wrong but there is no telling. In a few days a new set of folks will get up and make speeches and another set of commentators will tell us what the truth is. Hmmm.
There is an old story about a set of twin Indians in the old Oklahoma territory. Not to be racists as this story was told to me by both and Indian and a lawyer and that isn't the object anyway.
Seems that there were twin brothers who were very famous in the area, everyone knew them growing up and when the land rush took place they were pretty much the go to folks to help the settlers out. In thanks, the town voted to have the two brothers memorialized by carving a statue of each. Now you should know that the brothers were absolutely identical twins except for one thing; one was absolutely honest, told it precisely like it was and never ever, for any reason, told a lie. The other was just the opposite. Folks said that the truth just wasn't in him. But they were so likable that no one much cared unless you were getting directions or wanted to know the temperature.
Time passed and now famous and infamous, the twins' likenesses were ready for the great pubic unveiling. Just the night before however, when both were on their way to the town for the ceremony, tragedy struck and both lost their lives. The news was greeted with a sadness and great concern as the sculptor had passed away some time back as well and had forgotten to tell anyone or mark the statues in any way so there was no telling who was who. Now the brothers were dead and the entire thing was a mess.
A sachem appeared in the town with a solution. He would grant the townsfolk one question to be asked of one of the statues. Only one. One question. So the sachem appeared and cast his spell. The mayor approached the identical statues and picked the one on the right. "Are you the honest twin brother?" to which the statue came to life just for a second and of course replied "Yes". (think think think...get it?)
I'm reminded of this as I watch these actors. Some fella gets up there and hurls all kinds of "observations" based on "fact" and then someone else gets up and explains that all those "observations" are dead wrong and here are the facts.
Someone is telling the truth and someone is lying through his teeth. I'm worried that we can't tell the difference.