Molly Ivins -- Yes, Virginia, the idea of a lying government is serious

In case you missed it, a million Iraqi Shiites recently made the pilgrimage to Karbala, screaming: "No to America!"

Funny how media attention slips just at the diciest moments. I doubt that the United States was in this much danger at any point during the actual war.

What I cannot believe is that respected journalists -- most notably Tom Friedman, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner -- would simply dismiss the nonexistent WMDs as though it made no difference. Of course it matters if our government lies to us.

Why do you think people were so angry at Lyndon Johnson over the Gulf of Tonkin? At Richard Nixon over the "secret war" in Cambodia? Even at Bill Clinton over the less cosmic matter of whether he had sex with "that woman."

If it makes no difference whether the government lied, why is Friedman a journalist? Why does journalism exist at all?