A Warning, Not a Manual

Someone in the Office of Presidential Infallibility apparently doesn’t grasp the point of Orwell’s 1984. To wit, the revisionist insertion of “major” before the phrase “combat operations”; Rice’s incessant statement of facts that were known to be true before 1991 as if they were true in 2003; the “Program” program to change, after the fact, the reasons for war; and probably a few more I can’t think of right now.

The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. “Who controls the past,” ran the Party slogan, “controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”

AB