Whats in Front of Your Nose?

One of the blog's that I read almost on a daily basis is Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish - I often disagree with him but I find him to be in interesting guy because he has so several unpredictable dimensions to him - he is a Conservative but a lapsed Republican, a Clinton-hater (there's really no other way to put it) and a repentant supporter of the Iraq War, a man of faith and gay. However one of the things that's stayed with me ever since I started reading his blog is the quote from George Orwell that serves as his blog's motto/slogan - "To See What Is In Front of One's Nose Needs a Constant Struggle." If you're not quite sure what that really means beyond sounding clever - here's an example of a statement reflective of someone who's managed to peer through the propanganda put out in the Republican Convention in the last week and the Right's embrace of Sarah Palin -

"If you are biracial and born in a state not connected to the lower 48, America needs darn near 2 years and 3 major speeches to "get to know you." If you're white and from a state not connected to the lower 48, America needs 36 minutes and 38 seconds worth of an acceptance speech to know you're "one of us." If you spend 18 months building a campaign around the theme of "Change," it's just "empty rhetoric." If one week before your party's national convention you suddenly make your candidacy about "Change," that's "red meat." "

From John Ridley's Guide to the Conservative Palinguage - The People's Edition