A serious tactical rift within conservative ranks exists over the anomalies in Barack Obama's documentary record. The establishment insists that voters like Obama, so that campaign attacks should focus on his policies. Much of the base, a handful of publications, as well as what we might call a few intellectual dissidents, insist that a president who presents a fraudulent document on his birth is probably lying about much else, and is not to be trusted. One of the bravest of the dissidents, with a syndicated column whose prosperity depends on acceptance by editors,  Diana West, discusses the presidential election battle and the remarkable situation where evidence of an opponent's fraud is shunned by the rival camp. In other words they buy into the campaign-generated "narrative" ("By narrative, I mean propaganda," she avers.).  She focuses on: ...the relative power of "evidence" vs. "narrative." By evidence, I mean the facts and clues that support an argument or hypothesis....(Read Full Post)