The cacophony of media-designated, and self-proclaimed, pundits is amplified as much by  empty rhetoric as by disregard and disdain for facts.  Philosophical skepticism has come out of the closet and strode off the campus – only to be disowned by its very practitioners .  For them: better to be wrong than in doubt, but better yet, better always to be known to be right and never, ever  in doubt.   For them: to be right, in and of itself, is trivial.  To venture through television news is to enter a theatre filled with shrieking voices that would silence timbres of orchestral cymbals.  With truth-falsity conjoined and let loose with passionate intensity fueled by greater conviction, elected officials emerge as the distillate of a rhetorical chemistry set purchased at a discount from the Five and Ten Cent Store.