Whilst we wait for the Australian election to be resolved, here’s a depressing 1993 article about the invention of spin in politics. 17 years later and it’s only gotten worse:

In this new faith, it has come to be held that what sort of person a politician actually is and what he actually does are not really important. What is important is the perceived image of what he is and what he does. Politics is not about objective reality, but virtual reality. What happens in the political world is divorced from the real world. It exists for only the fleeting historical moment, in a magical movie of sorts, a never-ending and infinitely revisable docudrama. Strangely, the faithful understand that the movie is not true — yet also maintain that it is the only truth that really matters.