If George W. Bush is indeed elected for real this time around, it would signal the triumph of White House falsehoods continuously told. The prime lie, for those who yet believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, took a country to war under false pretenses that Saddam Hussein posed a nuclear threat to the continental U.S. A corollary, that 41 percent still believe, held that the Iraqi dictator supported the al-Qaida consortium that brought down the World Trade Center towers.

So weak was the evidence on the eve of the U.S. invasion that even this space doubted Bush would strike. "The war against Iraq cannot be," I wrote against the advice of our Washington bureau chief, who knew better. "Such criminal activity is ill-advised and should be illegal in a civilized world. Nor should America target for extermination those heads of state who displease the ruling circle of this republic . . . under the skeletal pretense spelled out so far, this war just cannot be." It was, of course, and still is..

I lost two nickels wagering that the astronomic costs and the waste of American lives would be prohibitive even to this swaggering, ice-blooded, Bible-thumping, cold-turkey drunk gone zealot in the White House. It has since been revealed that Bush's disdain for evidence, once he makes up his mind, is matched only by his disdain for syntax. Those evildoers who rely on facts and science for answers are dismissed at home and abroad as "reality-based" by this current commander-in- chief of the nuclear trigger.

Installed reportedly by a Higher Power, the president expects another four years.

Such a victory, according to pollsters and thus the media, is a lively possibility. I doubt this but that is getting ahead of the story.

A Bush victory left to the voters this time would be a national decision fraught with ominous, almost Orwellian overtones. In his satiric 1949 novel "1984," George Orwell warned against the massive intrusion into our lives represented by the bureaucratic rule of Big Brother. "On each landing, opposite the lift shaft," Orwell wrote, "the poster with the enormous face gazed from the wall. It was one of those pictures which are so contrived that the eyes follow you about when you move. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran."

In a case of life mimicking art, the U.S. Homeland Security Act is headed toward an Orwellian nightmare blanketing the nation around the clock with spying ears and eyes. Some lay blame to the terrorists of 9/11. But it is clear that, in wake of the Trade Center attack, the Bush administration had only to dust off the handy Patriot Act to sketch in the outlines of Orwell.

Still, the more unbelievable enactment of "1984" has evolved during the presidential campaign. Newspeak, the language Orwell created, is thrown around far too loosely to traffic in here. The gist of Newspeak, as described by a "1984" character, was "to narrow the range of thought." Herein lies the success of the administration's "Big Lie" as engineered by the president's chief manipulator, Karl Rove.

Rove's sweet-crude-oiled PR machine bears a potential resemblance to the depiction of Orwell's Big Lie to create its own reality. The buildup to the Iraq invasion and its aftermath in opinion polls appear to mark a success for White House agit-prop in the new millennium.

Some 38 percent of Americans, according to the latest Harris poll (Oct. 21), still believe the discredited Bush invasion rationale that Saddam Hussein had "weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded." So too, some 41 percent believe the disproved administration falsehood that there were direct terror links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. The foundation of this reality is grounded not on facts but on evidence hoped for but never realized, evidence proven to be unrealizable.

Politics in America is given by design to the flip if not the flop. High practitioners of this art, who appeal not to the rock of the intellect but to the web of the emotions, tend to be candidates indistinguishable from the scoundrel, and his first cousin, the cad. If the first species recalls Sen. Al D'Amato, then his first, and superior, cousin is William Clinton. In Bush we see rather a political mutant, a not particularly charming man who holds all language and facts as suspect.

What hope there is for the republic come Tuesday lies in the voters' break from the non-reality base of this president the Supreme Court thrust upon them in 2000. The polls say it will be close. I won't wage a nickel this time, but I say that John Kerry, minus Ralph Nader's vote, will win the popular by 6 points.

© 2004 Newsday, Inc.