What Are Facts Anyway?

Joe Friday, the archetypal police detective made famous in the 1950 police procedural Dragnet, will forever be remembered by the catchphrase — just the facts, ma’am. It’s an easy enough proposition — or so it seems.

In the world of politics, the request for the facts is as often a prelude to prevarication as it is an entrée to enlightenment. What are facts, anyway?

If many of the day’s politicians are to be believed, facts are anything they say they are — truth need not apply. Facts have been very much in the news since another catchphrase was coined. The moneyer this time was Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway. She gave every politician the gift that keeps on giving — the infamous and capacious term alternative fact. It’s not as if politicians haven’t played fast and loose with the truth since…well, since politicians started moving their lips.

Yet, somehow, Kellyanne’s euphemism for the word(s) lie [and truth] jolted the often-jaded community of Capitol City journalists in a way few other phrases have. Is the utter absurdity of the term the reason it’s been mocked so mercilessly?

Perhaps it’s how former President Trump has wielded his saber of lies against politicians of every ilk and even the very foundation of the Republic for which we all stand. Maybe it’s the Mouth of Manhattan’s forcing presumably sane, sensible, and ethical…