In the asylum that is American politics, beware a candidate like Barack Obama when he is lauded for moving to "the center" - because usually that means he is drifting away from it.

Warrantless wiretapping and immunity for telecom companiesviolating customers' privacy; conflicting signals on NAFTA reform; the specter of abandoning an ironclad timetable for bringing the troops home--- all billed by reporters as tacks to the "middle." Obama, wrote the AP, "repeatedly breaks with his liberal base on various issues to aggressively move to appeal to the center of the electorate."

Yet, the data proves that "the center of the electorate" is exactly the opposite:

- Polls by Quinnipiac University and the Mellman Group found majorities support warrant requirements for wiretaps, and oppose immunity for companies that released private consumer information without such warrants.

- Recent surveys by Fortune magazine, CNN and the Wall Street Journal report that most Americans oppose NAFTA-style "free" trade policies.

- For several years polls have said that Americans want a firm timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

Yet when a presidential candidate moves away from this so-called center, we are told he is moving toward it. What gives?

Part of the up-is-down distortion reflects perspective – or lack thereof.

In the invitation-only world of Washington elites., the "centrist" opinion backs job-killing trade deals; legal immunity for corporate wrongdoers; and wars for oil, regardless of casualties. They know where their bread is buttered. And for them it is reasonable-- read center. And so when Obama embraces those positions, Beltway opinionmakers truly think he's being a "centrist" - regardless of how far away from the actual center he's moving.

That's where the media comes in.

Day after day, smiling anchormen, blow-dried correspondents, and silver-tongued congressmen follow the Big Lie theory of indoctrination, taking to our televisions, radios and newspapers insisting that crazy is normal, the majority is the minority and – most importantly - the fringe is the "center." This is no accident. They know where their bread is buttered, too.

These voices of the status quo do not want the status quo challenged. They deliberately broadcast messages crafted to get us - the mainstream - to question our mainstream-ness, while reaffirming to politicians that the Establishment's extremism is moderate and responsible.

More Aldous Huxley than George Orwell, these are the methods of modern propaganda, with the celebration of Obama's "centrism" just the latest doublespeak whose underlying goal is to keep the real lunatics running the asylum.
I'm David Sirota, for GRIT-TV