Perspective one more time
What is a lie? Well … a lie is a deception such as Billy’s denial he made the same afternoon that Mom filled the cookie jar: “No, Mommy, I did not eat any of the cookies from the cookie jar,” said he, wiping cookie crumbs from his face.
Other, more widely known, examples might be, “There was no classified material in the thousands of emails I erased,” or “You can keep your doctor.” But what if these people thought that they were telling the truth? Sometimes this perspective may change a seeming untruth into a simple mistake, but do you really think Billy forgot that he ate the cookies, thinking the bits and pieces on his face were sawdust and not cookie crumbs? Did Bill Clinton think he and Monica were playing gin rummy? Was Hillary just tidying up a bit when she deleted emails, bleached her hard drives clean and smashed her cell phones? I still wonder if she was actually strafed by sniper fire during her trip overseas. My television showed a sweet little girl welcoming her with a bouquet of flowers. The problem with reclassifying political prevarications as simple mistakes is that most politicians know the score. What just happened was that guns or roses?
More subtle is the lie which involves pretending to be something you are not. Some politicians are adept at such deceptive impersonation. This is the POLITICIAN’S LIE and we experience it often. For instance, a politician on the stump in farm country will sound like a farmer and in a factory, a factory worker.
I remember one swinging through the south and suddenly developing a southern drawl. Wherever a politician stumps he will show himself to be one with the people. That is fine, but when this “everyman’s friend” gets to Washington, he tends to forget his good buddies on the farm and in the factory. When we voters give each legislator his title of “representative,” we expect him to represent “we the people.” We do not intend for him to service the RNC, or the DNC, or his own reelection.
Those who serve party or self, have lied the biggest of all lies, deceiving those who trusted them enough to elect them. If we sent home all those in Congress who lie in this way, the rest (all three of them) might get some work done. This.is the point of my previous commentary on perspective. When we elect leaders and lawmakers, we expect them to adopt the people’s perspective, not to view their work from Democrat, Republican or selfish perspectives.
According to a recent rebuttal article, “learned, honest and well-respected observers of the national scene” believe that President Trump tells lies. Are these well-respected observers the same presidential assassins who for two years have told us that they have evidence of Trump/Russian collusion? Were they simply mistaken? Surely, they were not trying to unseat a duly elected president with lies … Yes, Trump does exaggerate, maybe worse, but compare him to the politicians who unabashedly promise to right all wrongs when they get to Washington. Our current pugilistic Congress would rather in-fight, hamstring the presidency, and destabilize the country than carry out the people’s mandate: to tackle immigration problems, the coming insolvency of Social Security, Medicare troubles, VA deficiencies, health care needs, a twenty plus trillion-dollar national debt and tardy budgets.
The importance of a few exaggerations coming from an animated, non-politician, street fighter named Donald J. Trump, pales in comparison with the issues Congress promises to fix but continues to ignore. He is a deal maker who shoots both barrels from the hip. When he draws a line in the sand, smart folks know not to cross. Why? Because he means what he says. Finally, we have a president that means what he says. We all know where he stands. Did Trump lie when he said he would try to correct border issues, lower taxes, deregulate small businesses, fix the VA, balance foreign trade, and beef up the military? Unlike others, President Trump has kept his promises even though beset on every hand by a hostile Congress and media. I ask you, from this perspective, who are the real liars?
DeWitt Clinton is a resident of Dunbar.