The difficult choices are not between truths and falsehoods. The difficulty is in choosing which truth to voice in any given moment. Last week my mother said to me, "Your children suffered when you divorced their mother." That was true. I had difficulty hearing it not because I don't believe it. I do believe it. I was unhappy to hear this because of what my mother's choice to voice this truth at that moment revealed about her attitude towards me.

Choosing which truths to voice and the context for voicing them has great political significance. "The men who flew the planes into the World Trade Center were Muslims." This is the truth. If many people say that loudly many times a day for years, is that simple truth-telling, a good, enlightening thing? The question reveals why the writing of history is always political.