"There Is Nothing Covered...."

 These are not good times for myth-writers and icon-polishers. Bill Cosby, beloved comedian and TV dad, appears to be a serial rapist. My premium TV channel has been repeatedly running that documentary about cyclist Lance Armstrong’s years of illegal doping. And now, a report that took years to produce concludes that the CIA tortured people to obtain information about possible attacks on U.S. interests. Not entirely news, but the report says it was much more extensive than we thought.

We thought we were the good guys. We’d never do what the Nazis or the Stasi or the Russians would do. Until 9/11. Until it was hard not to.

The debate is still ongoing about whether torture to get information “works,” – whether it coerces people with info to spill it, resulting in the saving of American lives. Actually, I’m open to hearing more about this issue. I don’t think it’s been 100 percent settled yet, though it’s not looking good for the pro-torture folks so far.

But what bothers me most is that in many cases, our CIA people didn’t even have to look the people being tortured in the eye. This is America, we even contracted THAT out, and the private contractors weren’t supervised much of the time. Now, I know many of them may be patriots, but I’m sure they liked being paid. And I’ll be willing to betcha that at least some of them enjoyed their work. Even in the TV world, while you were being tortured, at least you got to deal directly with Jack Bauer, Carrie Mathison or Saul Berenson.

Many of us may have enjoyed seeing Saddam Hussein’s statue being pulled down in the streets of Baghdad in 2003, but how many of our own idols have fallen? Why can’t things be what they seem to be, what we’ve been told for so long that they are?

In the Bible, Jesus is quoted as saying, “There is nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and nothing hidden that shall not be known.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m suffering from revelation fatigue. I’d like to have a month or two go by when a myth isn’t busted, when my idol is still supported by its feet of clay. Just for a while.