Miss Information

The Stars and Stripes was first published when the US sent soldiers and Marines to Europe in WWI. An early regular feature was an advice column for the loveworn entitled Miss Information. No doubt many young Americans were entertained, if not enlightened, by the tongue in cheek advice. As I was listening this morning to a very buff Republican Congressman from Missouri say the words "death tax" no fewer than fourteen times, I couldn't help but think about Miss Information and how serious our Republican friends are about their own brand of misinformation. We all know that Death Tax is their sobriquet for the Inheritance Tax, an attempt to finally collect a little tax from those trust fund folks who never worked for wages. We know that what started out as Private Accounts has now, in Miss Information's lexicon, become personal accounts. You are probably bored by hearing other examples of Miss Information's work such as the license to pollute know as the Clear Skies Act, the vehicle of exit from challenged schools for affluent chuldren called the No Child Left Behind Act, which of course is designed to leave some certain children behind, and so on.

And now, Miss Information likes to talk about a Culture of Life which does not apply to anyone in the line of fire in Iraq and which evidently doesn't refer to abolishing the death penalty. Somehow, the Culture of Life also doesn't refer to making sure every child has adequate health care. Clearly, Miss Information is back with us, but she's not as fun. Maybe someone needs to catalog other modern examples of perfidious obfuscation for political gain!