Facts don't matter. What matters is my strongly-held yet uninformed convictions.

Dennis Prager uncovers a secular leftist plot!

Why have almost no Americans (excepting those who watch on C-SPAN) ever seen what is located above the president, the vice president and the speaker of the House? Why do network television cameras never pull back and give a wide-angle view of the president delivering his speech? That is certainly routine for TV: It is considered uninteresting to TV viewers to have a fixed view of a subject.

I discovered the answer when I attended President Obama’s speech on health care to a joint session of Congress.

I saw chiseled in the marble wall behind the speaker and vice president, in giant letters, the words, “In God We Trust."

My immediate reaction was to wonder: Why had I never seen that before? I have, after all, been watching State of the Union addresses for about 40 years.

Apparently, not very closely!

Seriously, though -- this is perfectly consistent with just about every wingnut bugaboo.

There must be welfare queens driving fancy cars because I believe it to be true. There must have been WMD in Iraq because I believe it to be true. Tax cuts must increase revenue because I believe it to be true. We would've won the war in Vietnam if Walter Cronkite hadn't demoralized the country because I believe it to be true. Global warming must be a big lie because I believe Al Gore is fat. And so on.

Facts matter very little with wingers. Beliefs are what really matter to them.