WHEN PEOPLE ask me, "So what's your New Year's resolution?" my immediate answer is: To search for the truth and to write about it as well as I can.

Why? Because 2003 was a year when our democracy was degraded by official deception. These are some of the more egregious lies promoted by our government:

• We needed to invade Iraq because Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium from Niger, had links with al Qaeda, possessed weapons of mass destruction and posed an imminent threat to this country (none of which turned out to be true).
  
• We needed tax cuts to stimulate the economy. Giving new meaning to compassionate conservatism, the Bush administration's tax cuts mostly benefited the wealthy.
  
• Our economy (actually, corporate profits) is rapidly recovering -- despite the fact that homelessness, hunger, outsourcing of jobs overseas and lagging job growth have widened the gap between people who can buy luxury goods and those who can't make ends meet.
  
• We are safer now, even though commercial airplanes and ships anchored in our ports still carry cargo that is not inspected for lethal weapons. Our invasion of Iraq, moreover, has inflamed much of the Islamic and Arab world and alienated our traditional allies.
  
• The military action in Afghanistan was an immense success. Nevertheless, the Taliban have regrouped, Osama bin Laden remains at large, warlords run the provinces surrounding Kabul and the new constitution appears to do little to improve the legal rights of women.
  
• We are so committed to democratic principles that we must export them to Iraq. At the same time, the Patriot Act has challenged some of our most cherished civil rights and liberties at home.
  
• We need to reduce big government spending on health care, housing and social services. But it's good economic policy to create the largest deficit in our history by spending billions on the militarization of space, pre- emptive wars and corporate subsidies.

To counter so much deception and hypocrisy, I'd like to salute just a few individuals -- among millions -- who have refused to be silenced and have dared to disentangle this Orwellian doublespeak.

In the mainstream media, a few courageous journalists -- Bill Moyers, Robert Scheer, Paul Krugman, E. J. Dionne, Bob Herbert, Molly Ivins and William Safire -- have used their public platforms to expose lies about the Iraq war, to reveal the insanity of the federal government's economic policies, to publicize the growing desperation of the poor and to defend our most fundamental civil rights and liberties.

Kudos, too, to Jon Stewart, Al Franken, Michael Moore and Bill Maher, whose humor helped some of us laugh during this depressing year.

I'd also like to honor Joseph C. Wilson, whose truth-telling about his journey to Niger, at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney, punctured the administration's propaganda about Hussein's purchase of uranium. Sadly, someone in the Bush administration sought swift revenge by destroying his wife's career.

A special toast to Pvt. Jessica Lynch, who refused to pretend she was a cinematic heroine who emptied her rifle as the enemy troops closed in on her company. Instead, she told the truth. Her rifle jammed; an explosion caused her injuries; and no one beat her in the hospital.

And finally, I'd like to honor PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer for reminding us that real men and women are killed in Iraq. Every few days, the NewsHour ends with a moment of silence during which the names, ages and photographs of soldiers who have died in Iraq are displayed. (By contrast, President Bush bans the press from covering the return of dead soldiers to the United States and has done his very best to ignore the reality of these terrible losses.)

These are but a handful of people who understand that our nation has thrived because true patriots, regardless of the consequences, have been willing to seek and speak the truth.

©2004 San Francisco Chronicle

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