That is the conclusion of a fascinating new book, "Why America Fights," which traces America's involvement in a number of wars. It introduces a new word: infoganda. This being the masquerading of propaganda to go to war as information; Donald Rumsfeld called it "perception management." When you watch the military flyovers here each July 3, that is really and sadly part of that infoganda campaign, which has gotten costly and almost sacrilegious if you oppose it.

Back at Comedy Central, Jon Stewart was ambivalent about the government's foray into his own specialty, musing aloud about whether he should be outraged or flattered. One of his faux correspondents, though, was outright faux despondent. "They created a whole new category of fake news — infoganda," Rob Corddry said. "We'll never be able to keep up!" But Mr. Corddry's joke is not really a joke. The more real journalism declines, the easier it is for such government infoganda to fill the vacuum.

Continue analects — probably not for posterity, but then, in an age of propagation/infoganda, posterity may be just around the corner.