The Truth Is Still Overboard

"Truth," the SMH editorial today tells us, "can be hard to divine."

Indeed. When politicians lie to us as a matter of course, when the media and even the highest courts in the land have partisan views, who can we trust? How can we ordinary people possibly know the truth?

"For many, the answer will be decided not by evidence but by political partisanship."

But that's really not good enough, is it? Party politics becomes just another football game, with flag-waving fans banging different drumbeats and hurling abuse from either side of the pitch. Hardly what model democracies are supposed to be about, particularly democracies that presume to invade other countries to spread their "values".

The Australian says that "for almost three long years Scrafton maintained his silence, as was his duty as a public servant."

This is either stupidly immoral or just another example of lazy journalism. Scrafton was a PUBLIC servant, not a Liberal Party servant. He should have spoken up - loudly - at the time. His silence allowed Howard three more years in power, his silence allowed Howard to take us into a war we did not want or believe in, and his silence helped allow the slaughter of 15,000 Iraqis.

It's good that Scrafton is speaking up now, but his silence for three years is unforgiveable.

The same applies to all the intelligence officials who allowed the WMD claims to go unchallenged. We get the governments we deserve, folks.