It's a bit late in coming, but good to see it at last. This business of substituting perception for reality has irked me beyond the point of caring about it--sort of like a sore joint that I'd given up trying to get healed. Remember, this is a nation where the Hero of Chappaquiddick is still a senator, and where a notorious plagiarist is still referred to as "Doctor" and memorialized with a national holiday. Other examples will suggest themselves without any prompting on my part.
I may take a wild shot at guessing why this came to be so. Reality is not malleable, but public perception is. Those who would lord over all that they see must condition us to take the funny money of perception (as managed by themselves) in preference to the realities which they cannot manage. We are trained to distrust and denigrate the evidence of our own eyes, and to see what we supposedly ought, rather than what actually is.
This attempt, in the wake of 911, is a "bridge too far" in their manipulative and revisionism efforts. Perhaps, just perhaps, if we are virtuous enough, work hard enough and if God in Heaven is willing, we can start rolling things back from here.
we can but try and then place in His worthy hands.