Lying Liars

I promised myself I wasn’t going to rant about politics. Everyone is doing it and it’s all being said. Except…well, in all the blather I am not hearing about things in the way that I am thinking about them. So I guess I need to share.

Let’s start with a little enumeration of the usual suspects, in no particular order, and we will keep it simple to make the point. I don’t want to rehash what we all know. 

Benghazi – it was the movie.-  
IRS – a couple of rogue agents in Cincinnati and not a smidgen of evidence to the contrary.
Obamacare – you can keep your health insurance, doctor, hospital if you want to

I was watching the Five on Fox the other night. Bob Beckel looked like he was just about to have apoplexy over the creation of a Special Committee to investigate the Benghazi affair. His problem with it was that it was all “just politics”. It was politics when the administration said it was the movie, and not terrorists, and it is politics now with the Republican House appointing a special committee. His point was that that the things done in the exercise of politics are just the way it is.

Apparently in Beckel’s mind it is okay for our government, from the President on down to an IRS lifer bureaucrat, to lie to the American people, as long as it is “just politics”.  I guess in his mind “politics” is a justification for doing things that are illegal, immoral, and just plain wrong.

Since when?

This is supposed to be government of the people, by the people and for the people. However, when it is okay for government to lie to us to avoid losing elections, or to attempt to ruin your political opposition with the illegal application of the IRS, or to garner support for a bad law that attempts to grab a seventh of the economy and place it under the control of government, then that sounds very much to me like people of the government, by the government, for the government.

It. Is. Never. Okay. For. People. In. Government. To. Lie. To. Us. Ever. Period. End. Fucking. Dot!

Government has always had its secrets. Many times we are better off not knowing them. You don’t want the CIA broadcasting who their spies are, for example. Or what our negotiating strategy is on the big treaty. Why in heaven’s name, Bill Clinton, did you tell the world that we could listen in on cell calls around the world, which had the immediate effect of every terrorist out there not using them anymore, eliminating one of our best anti-terrorist intelligence sources? Oh yeah, so he could look tough, you know, “politics”. Keeping secrets, and perhaps even lying about such things as this are acceptable. Unless you’re Edward Snowden, I guess. Hmm. Maybe need a rethink here.

Remember Richard Nixon? He was forced to resign for covering up, in other words lying about, a stupid burglary of a Democratic business office. Nobody ever actually showed that Nixon ordered the burglary or that he even knew about it beforehand. But he sure did lie about it afterwards. Why? So he could get reelected. You know, “politics”. As a nation we were outraged and it was not to be tolerated. He was about to be impeached. So he left.

Most people forget, if they ever knew, that the thing that was really going to get Nixon was that he tried to get the IRS and FBI to investigate, audit and do the other painful things they do to a list of his political opponents and their supporters and fund raisers. Sound familiar? It is very illegal; seriously, there are very real very specific laws about it. In those days the IRS and FBI resisted Nixon and refused to do what he wanted. The worm sure has turned.

I blame Bill Clinton and his willy. He was the one who started the public in your face lying. Remember the asinine excuse that he smoked pot but never inhaled? That was funny and we all sort of snickered, without ever accepting that if he would lie in such a clumsy manner about something like that, then he was capable of lying about anything. It got serious when he looked us right in the eye through the TV camera and told us he “did not have sex with that woman”. Then he tried a somewhat sloppy cover up. He got all slippery about what the definition of sex is, and even what the definition of is is (though that was in a different unrelated sex scandal). We were all a bit uncomfortable with the impeachment, because it was after all a private matter, mostly, and more importantly was all about sex. I think a majority of Americans felt deep down that if they found themselves in the same position, they would lie about it, too. Sort of hard to hold the guy culpable for that.

The problem with Billy’s willy was that he kept trying to shove it into women everywhere. Paula Jones. Jennifer Flowers. Who knows how long the list is? What we did by excusing him the blue dress and cigar stuffing with a 19 year old intern in the Oval Office was condone sexual predatory behavior. A CEO in the same position, even then, would have been fired. Senator Bob Packwood was forced to resign by his fellow Republicans for much of the same things Clinton did. But we let Billy get away with it. I think it set a tone and sent a message.  The message was that we can accept lying from our government if it’s for the right reasons, or at least not for the wrong ones.

Now the right reasons have expanded and the wrong ones shrunk. If you’re my party, and espouse my politics and values, and you are, you know, the right kind of person, then it is permissible to lie for the good of us all. The partisan lines have been drawn so strongly that we will accept just about anything from the guy who is on our side as long as it keeps the guy on the other side at bay. If our guy lies to stay in office, I’m for it. My goodness, if we hold Obama to the outrageous and unattainably high standard of not lying to us, we might, gasp, oh the horrors of the thought, end up with a Republican, or a Conservative, or a Heterosexual, or a Christian, or a Caucasian Male, or all five!

Lie, Barry, Lie!

Right now I don’t believe much of anything the President says, or anything any member of his administration says, including all of the agencies and bureaus and spokesmen. I literally believe nothing they say. I assume that somewhere in the message is an untruth, an evasion, a twisting of reality. I feel this so strongly that I turn off the TV or switch channels whenever the President shows up and starts talking. To me, he’s like the old lawyer joke: How do you know when he’s lying? When his lips are moving.

I don’t like Obama’s policies, or share his priorities or solutions to issues on most things. I can live with and accept an honorable opponent who is sincere. I really wanted to believe that the President’s positions were honestly held and firmly believed. When you are dealing with someone like that, you can have discourse and attempt to reach mutually acceptable positions. Sure you are not going to vote for him, but the USA is well served and that’s the whole point, right?

I don’t think this President is honest about anything. I suspect that he doesn’t really have any firm beliefs or heartfelt convictions, other than those needed to win elections. All the things he expresses are just the necessities required to get him power and keep it.  Whatever it takes. Whatever he has to say. Whatever he has to do that he can get away with.

I came to these opinions because he has been caught lying about so many things. He makes Bill Clinton look like a Boy Scout. I don’t believe he gives a rip what happens to the USA after his is gone, only what he got out of it while he was in it.

Am I wrong?