“Says here that the Pentagon is going to start counter-acting against news reports that fail to shed the proper light on the subjects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Enon was reading one of the papers. It was still fresh in the morning, so he spoke with a reasonably clear head. He can come off sounding pretty elegant when he’s not drunk. “They are going to be presenting their own news stories through various creative media outlets. The suggestion is that the stories we hear normally are not the truth, rather lies designed to steer our opinions of the war in the wrong direction.”

“And that direction would be…” I started.

“Left,” he said.

“Of course,” I complied. “But isn’t it a little late in the game to try and turn the upcoming elections?” It seemed to me that that would be the only reason the Pentagon would be even remotely interested in influencing the content of media propaganda, that is to say, aside from what they normally do to generate news stories.

“I don’t think they can do much to spoil the momentum of the election at this point in the game,” he offered, pausing to take a sip from his pint bottle of whiskey, “but what really bothers me about it is that they feel it is necessary to manipulate the news at all. They are implying that we don’t get the correct news, and therefore they have to somehow tweak it in order to give us a different perspective.”

“So…”

“So it becomes a question of who’s truth is the right truth. And at that point the issue becomes less dependent on fact, and more on ideology.” Enon took another sip. He waited for me to respond for while. I was trying to roll a cigarette, but the tobacco was dry and the wind was blowing, so I was having a hard time of it. He finally finished: “So the Pentagon itself becomes its own media outlet because the commercial networks aren’t quite all on the same bus as them.”

“You can see that anywhere,” I finally told him, “about any kind of news. Each individual network has their own ideological versions of what to present to the public. It’s never clear whether they are trying to cater to an existing segment of the population, or if they are in fact trying to sway the population into thinking along their particular lines.”

“I think if you ever listen to A.M. talk radio you’d tend to opt for the recruitment side,” he said. “No sense in preaching to the chorus.”

“Probably,” I said. “But if you really listen, then it means that you are essentially pre-disposed to thinking along the same lines as them anyhow. They are, in fact, catering to a particular segment of society.”

“Then you’re saying that the Pentagon can manipulate the media all they want to, but the only people who will really listen will be the ones who want to believe it. And everybody else will just go ahead and believe whatever they want, because no matter what it is, they can find an outlet that presents it to them the way they like it.”

“In a perfect world…” I said. “But in the real world everybody’s probably going to head lock-step over to the Pentagon Channel just because it’s the Pentagon and not some damned foreigner.”

“And get on board,” Enon added, “because if you don’t we’re going to start tossing terms like patriotism and Christianity around.”

“We’ll be afraid to show our faces in public,” I agreed. “You’re going to have to send a runner for your whiskey from now on, because they’ll recognize you if you go downtown.” He pondered that for a moment as if he was really taking me seriously. The truth of the matter is that he usually has somebody else bring him his whiskey anyhow.

“It’s almost like North Korea, the way they control the media,” he said.

“Next thing that’s gunna’ happen is they’ll seal the borders,” I speculated. We looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders simultaneously. He took another sip from his pint, then passed the bottle over to me.