Here is an answer the next time you hear or read, "You can't make these things up."

Oh, I think you can make it up. Anything can be made up. Some people are really good at making things up or transforming things through literary acumen. The power of human creativity is vast and unfathomable.

And most of us are very good at suspending disbelief to enter into the marvelous experience of a good narrative when it reinforces the waves of the narrative ocean in which we swim.

You have to admire the skill if not the veracity.

It is a great skill in fiction … but in making life and policy choices …. well????