It is reasonable to be wary, these days, of powerful figures asserting stories that seem plainly contrary to observable events.
My first stop was the coalition's Web site, which featured an image of two glum-looking old people and lots of facts and figures asserting that the elderly are at risk from "Obamacare".
But in a climate where virtually everyone's intentions are questioned, many dissident figures asserted that the government itself had carried out the attack to sully the opposition's image and validate its own argument that it was fighting terrorists.
His document, first circulated to a very strictly limited group of senior mandarins in the Scottish Office, and then, in 1975, given to a few senior Cabinet Office figures, asserts that the Department of Trade and Industry, then under Tory control, hadn't properly grasped oil's future value.
In many instances, media figures asserted that the group used the threat of the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) to intimidate banks into making risky loans.
Libya's economy witnessed increasing privatization; although rejecting the socialist policies of nationalized industry advocated in The Green Book, government figures asserted that they were forging "people's socialism" rather than capitalism.
No doubt Owens is an almost preternaturally graceful and heroic figure, asserting his will despite isolation and scorn even greater than Robinson had to face.
This informs us that hysteria is stopped by a strong, respected authority figure asserting the reality principle, dispelling hysterical fears permeating the community.
We are entering, in politics especially, a post-factual era in which it is apparently permissible for public figures to assert things without evidence, and then to justify their assertions by adding "Well, that's my opinion" – as though that in itself was some kind of justification.
Mr. Bush alluded to these figures to assert his commitment to the military.
