Dizzy

The world of political spin is one in which no one can dare take another’s words at face value. War can be peace, freedom can be slavery, and ignorance can be strength, if a source close to the White House deems it so.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Some people say spin is lying. (“Spin is lying,” says essayist Roger Rosenblatt.) Some people say it is not. (“Spin is not lying,” says P.R. maven Howard Rubenstein.) Others take a middle position. (“It’s a matter of degree,” says former Reagan adviser Lyn Nofziger.) In fact, with spin, one can never be sure. That’s the point. “Lies or not,” notes Clinton campaign adviser Ann Lewis, “spin adds up to more than just the truth.”

In Bill Clinton’s Washington, most people seem to find the question of spin vs. lying largely irrelevant. The city operates under what Washington Post White House correspondent Ann Devroy calls a “tacit understanding, that even though we say you shouldn’t lie, the definition of lies and the definition of truth are all sort of malleable.”

This malleability is one reason our politics have ceased to have much relationship to governance. That obsolete ideal has been replaced by a theater of the absurd designed simply to foster the impression of governance. This is true not only at the skanky margins, where a self-evident crook like Al D’Amato can appoint himself an ethics cop, but right in the red-hot center of the political system.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate