Life as Art or Art as Life? or subtitle: We have a Government Accountablity Office?

Which is it? Both? Try these two sentances [from the NYTimes] on for size and see if it fits:

"The prayers of those hoping that real television news might take its cues from Jon Stewart were finally answered on Feb. 9, 2005. A real newsman borrowed a technique from fake news to deliver real news about fake news in prime time."

By Rich's count, at least 6 folks have shilled for Shrub, and lied, or more euphamistically, mislead the public about it.

Slice:

By my count, "Jeff Gannon" is now at least the sixth "journalist" (four of whom have been unmasked so far this year) to have been a propagandist on the payroll of either the Bush administration or a barely arms-length ally like Talon News while simultaneously appearing in print or broadcast forums that purport to be real news. Of these six, two have been syndicated newspaper columnists paid by the Department of Health and Human Services to promote the administration's "marriage" initiatives. The other four have played real newsmen on TV. Before Mr. Guckert and Armstrong Williams, the talking head paid $240,000 by the Department of Education, there were Karen Ryan and Alberto Garcia. Let us not forget these pioneers - the Woodward and Bernstein of fake news. They starred in bogus reports ("In Washington, I'm Karen Ryan reporting," went the script) pretending to "sort through the details" of the administration's Medicare prescription-drug plan in 2004. Such "reports," some of which found their way into news packages distributed to local stations by CNN, appeared in more than 50 news broadcasts around the country and have now been deemed illegal "covert propaganda" by the Government Accountability Office.

End slice:

Do we have a GAO? If so, the Government Accountability Office must be swamped with troubleshooting this administrations dubious stratagem.

Are folks out there beleaguered as much as I am trying to figure out which news is pertinant and trustworthy, and with the mainstream use of programs like photoshop, which images are true?

These days, truth, is very elusive, and always a slave to perception.