The Obama Administration is positioning itself to receive the credit for what they consider to be imminent success in Iraq. Talking with Larry King on Wednesday night, Vice-President Joe Biden claimed that the success enjoyed in the past year and the upcoming draw down of troops will be viewed as major achievements of this Administration. That in spite of the fact that the troop surge, which just about everyone now acknowledges to have been a success, and the draw down timetable were developed under President Bush. Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden bitterly opposed the surge.

Then, yesterday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs confirmed Vice-President Biden's claims, once again owning for the Administration the looming success in Iraq. These, of course, are, to be kind, gross exaggerations of the truth.

But the Obama Administration is becoming famous for these. Their policy seems to be to say or claim whatever puts them in the best light, whether or not the facts back it up, and then keep saying it, in every possible venue, until, it having been said often enough, people assume it must be so. The Cheshire Cats who work in the White House know what they're doing. These are not bumbling mistakes or understandable hyperbole. This is policy. Say whatever you need to say in order to take credit for whatever looks good, and keep saying it until we decide that we have established the claim as consenus, if not fact.

Man, I'm getting really tired of this. I keep wanting the President to do something consistent with his claims to be a Christian, and yet, just about every week, he spins out some new policy or claim that flies in the face of Biblical principle, sound judgment, or simple truth. Is it just that we will believe anything? Are we all just whistling in the grave yard - It'll be OK, everything's all right, these are good and decent people?

The problem in American politics today is not, in the first instance, in the politicians. It's in the electorate. Politicians will play to whatever they believe the electorate will accept, and they're always testing the water. This Administration is simply bolder and more brazen and perhaps even mendacious than previous ones. Unless the electorate gets some grounding in truth, some vision for government that reflects the Christianity-informed program our Founders erected, and some spine to resist the equivocators and all their seductive offers, this polis as we know it today is doomed.

Lies, half-truths, and deliberate deception can never build a great nation. But consciences captive in the grip of sin and self-interest cannot - will not - resist the Lie, as long as they see something for themselves in it. The electorate needs a new conscience. The electorate needs the Gospel.

And Mr. Obama is not going to offer them that.

T. M. Moore