Is it all a mirage?

One of my favorite movies is The Flying Deuces, with the legendary comedy team Laurel and Hardy. The basic premise of the film is that the two, to escape real and/or imagined troubles with the opposite sex, decide to join the French Foreign Legion.

And in the course of the film, some of their more senior fellows explain desert mirages to the pair: "A mirage is something you see that's not there, or something you don't see that is there." Through subsequent pantomime, the old hands attempt to convince Stan and Ollie of the existence of totally imaginary objects, and despite being quite dated (1939) it's great fun.

Actually, what we are seeing -- and aren't -- in our college classrooms, in our newspapers (excepting this one, of course!) and on our TV screens rather mirrors the old salt's observation about mirages in The Flying Deuces.

With one difference: it's true instead of funny.

For the most part, what is nowadays presented as fact in the classroom and in the news has been tainted by preconceived notions to the degree it has lost its value as information. That is: bias colors what passes for both news and education, especially at the higher level.

As usual, numerous examples abound. But lately they have gotten so egregious, blatant and extreme as to call into question the entirety of what we see, hear and read both in news outlets and in classrooms.

* As we reported in last Sunday's paper, a high school English teacher in Bennington, Vt. wrote and gave a vocabulary quiz to students with questions like: "I wish Bush would be (coherent, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his everyday diction charms the below-average mind, hence insuring him Republican votes." The students were supposed to pick between "coherent" and "eschewed" for the right answer (coherent).

But inherent in the question was the assumption, force-fed as fact to students, that Republicans have "below-average minds." Is this teacher allowed to hold given political views? Of course. But what gives him a license to force-feed those views to his students, as though his opinion were an established fact?

If the question had instead been "I wish Clinton would be (honest, eschewed) for once during a speech, but there are theories that his crafty use of diction charms the evil mind, hence insuring him Democratic votes," how would the Left have reacted? We have already seen, for example, John Kerry react angrily to what he claimed was a charge of cowardice by Dennis Hastert against decorated Vietnam veteran John Murtha for demanding withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

And that's right, Hastert never said any such thing.

* Speaking of Iraq, in case you missed it (which is not likely), we see the mainstream media trumpeting complaints by Iraqi president Iyad Allawi that Iraqi police under his Administration are "are doing the same as [in] Saddam Hussein's time and worse," as quoted by (among others) NewsMax.com. "These are the precise reasons why we fought Saddam Hussein and now we are seeing the same things."

But did you see anyone quote him back in June 2004 (outside of NewsMax.com, that is) when he said, in seeming defiance of liberals both here and abroad, that "We know that [the Iraq war] is an extension to what has happened in New York," as he told NBC's Tom Brokaw. "And the war [has] been taken out to Iraq by the same terrorists?"

Or six months before that, when Allawi told the London Telegraph that documents from Saddam's old intelligence agency showed: "Not only did Saddam have contacts with al-Qaeda, he had contact with those responsible for the September 11 attacks?"

What was it the old soldier said about not seeing stuff that was there?

* Speaking of schools, I was fascinated to see third-grade teachers in a Madison, Wis. school actually assigned their students to write letters to fellow students, parents and public officials urging an end to the war in Iraq. The school described the assignment as "a civics lesson while improving penmanship and composition," said the local newspaper, the Madison Gazette.

Civics lesson? In what, how to use kids that don't know any better to further one's own ends? That's what the Viet Cong did in sending kids out with hand grenades to throw at our troops?

What's appalling is that, though the school canceled the assignment when it found out what was up, it refused to do so out of hand. "Frank Allis Elementary School Principal Chris Hodge said the third-grade teachers came to her with the proposal last week. She believed it violated district policy but wanted to check with administration officials first," said the Gazette story.

Why wasn't it a no-brainer? Worse, "the teachers misinterpreted her comments and sent a letter about the campaign to parents anyway."

By the way, the teachers still have their jobs. Another case of not seeing what is there, no doubt

* Then, closer to home, there was the lady who bragged about having her words twisted around by the press in this state. The issue, as readers may recall, concerned the so-called 65-percent Solution, roundly panned by Democrats despite the fact most schools are close to, if not in excess of, the target amount of spending in classrooms.

The woman had said she had told the press the mandate for 65 percent flew in the face of the idea of local control. "Well, they [the press] kind of twisted it around and made it sound really bad for the governor," she said. "But it was wonderful! I wish I'd've thought of saying it just like they did."

Thus trying to make us see something that isn't there.

There is, of course, much more, like the X over vice president Dick Cheney that CNN officials said was a technical problem even as a CNN switchboard operator was telling a caller it was "free speech," or comments from Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman -- that you haven't heard though they were made just this last Monday -- acknowledging great progress in Iraq and urging we stick with the plan his fellow Democrats alternately claim doesn't exist or isn't working.

But you get the idea.

Just as that old hand told Stan and Ollie about 66 years ago, what we see in the news and in the classrooms is just a mirage.

What you see isn't there, and you don't see what is there.

Gary Exelby is the editor of the Daily Statesman. E-mail him at gexelby@dailystatesman.com and visit his website at http://exelby.vnovus.com.