..out of the dark

1. Standards are always relative. Therefore, anyone proclaiming to have standards based on actual considerations, not simply semantical illusions, are liars.

"You're being rewarded and reelected for not being corrupt - doesn't that make you a hypocrite?"

2. Truly questioning the details, however, must be avoided completely, as this might bacfire and lend credibility to any stance as moral.

"Then how do you respond to the allegations of harboring terrorists in your office on the Capitol, as well as paying them for services? The ones going by the names of Susan, John and Khalid?!"
-"They're my staff."

3. Secret sources are your friends. Make use of them as much as possible, specially when you have no possibility of checking whether what they say is true. Or even better, if you don't know who said it in the first place. Plausible deniability means it is your responsibility to speculate and dig as much as possible, however implausible and intrusive the questioning might become. While knowing what the facts and actual statements are on beforehand, might unfairly suggest any responsibility lies squarely with you.

"Is congresswoman Hatshepsut actually pregnant with Lizards? We ask the question and let you decide the matter for yourself."

4. Context matters, so treat all issues with the respect and total care they deserve. If no context is offered, any report is neutral, and the blame for any shoddy handiwork and false conclusions can be placed on the reactions of the readers rather than the neutral messenger.

"Should the fire be returned to the gods! No! This is only the first of a stream of demands against the working man that the gods keep on levying against those who will not stand against their tyrannical rule. It's an outrage! And this must stop, and I'll be outraged until we claim the fire is ours and not theirs and that's why I'll vote for Senator Haiku!".

5. Political allegiance is a necessary evil, just as faith in god and the infallibility of your reasoning. Otherwise, there would be no controversies to illuminate, but simply a stream of ill- informed opinions with emotional baggage. Perish the thought. But no direct endorsements - your convictions are your own unassailable facade of infallibility, and therefore not to be described specifically.

"And that's why anyone questioning my right to advocate disbanding the congress and install an emperor is a conservative/liberal elitist."

6. Any political question can be settled by taking sides. This is what it is all about, and when you choose a side, you have taken grave and serious, if insubstantial and unspecific, choices. Thus, any opinion asking which side is the right one, must be important, and quite possibly a pointer to another grave and important, but still unspecific and insubstantial, fact. But only you know what it actually refers to.

"On the other hand, blue is a nice color".

7. A pundit is providing an essential service to the general public. Without their simplifications and helpful illuminations, the public cannot form coherent opinions.

"And that's why throwing the UN charter on the refuse- pile of history amounts to a healthy taunting of the French and their arrogance."

8. To simplify is a sign of great intelligence. Drawing seemingly impossible conclusions and parallels from the facts available, through unfathomable leaps of faith, places you "in the know".

"And that's why the Churchillean leaders of today is waging the next world war".

9. Your political movement of choice is led by ideas, not by people. Thus, anything you say or do will never damage the idea behind the movement. While all personal conduct and hypocrisy can be written off or scorned (or in the case of prominent individuals, ignored and forgiven) to the movement's benefit.

"Verily, verily, this liberal sinner has come back to the fold!"

10. Any reasoning can be asserted as sound if it is not spelled out in specifics. The leap of faith is therefore a political conviction, and is an essential tenet in your political beliefs.

"The bigger fences we build on our borders, the better neighbors we get".