PrintMay 28, 2009
The Liar's Club
The unfolding spectacle of Speaker Pelosi attending a briefing, in which the CIA informed her of enhanced interrogation techniques, and then lying about it, is part of the grave danger to our democracy. The Left is shrinking honesty into an empty, ignored, and mocked virtue. Pelosi is not just lying about being at a vital briefing; she has decided that the best defense is a good offense: accuse the CIA of misleading Congress and, particularly, her. This is much worse than simply holding the wrong policy on issues.
Mike Mansfield often held very wrong positions on issues, but he never lied to America or to his colleagues. The Left, when it had men like Mike Mansfield, Eugene McCarthy, and Hubert Humphrey, valued honesty. When the Left stood for something more important that the personal gain of power, wealth, or fame, Leftists were willing to tell the truth even when it hurt them politically.
Freedom of speech has most important when the speech is unwelcome. People require no legal protection for saying what is popular. They require protection for saying what angers people. But the Left cares nothing at all about freedom and it cares even less about truth.
Nancy Pelosi is lying and she is compounding that offense by lying about lying. The man who might have led the Democrats, "Pretty Boy" John Edwards looked at reporters and the American people and flatly, boldly lied to us. Bill Clinton did almost exactly the same thing when he flatly and indignantly denied having sex with Monica Lewinsky. The affair itself was sordid, childish, selfish, and sleazy, but the affair was a peccadillo. The grand crime was lying.
Recall what the Left said about his lying then? Stuff like this: "Lying is sometimes good," "It is healthy to lie," and "Well, virtually all of us lie." John Edwards was the Vice Presidential Nominee for the Democrats in 2004 and one of the leading contenders for the nomination in 2008. Bill Clinton was elected president twice. Honored members of the Liars Club.
Recall what the Left said about his lying then? Stuff like this: "Lying is sometimes good," "It is healthy to lie," and "Well, virtually all of us lie." John Edwards was the Vice Presidential Nominee for the Democrats in 2004 and one of the leading contenders for the nomination in 2008. Bill Clinton was elected president twice. Honored members of the Liars Club.
Does anyone believe that Barack Obama's Chief of Staff knew nothing about Blago's auctioning the Illinois Senate seat? Rahm Emanuel and Obama initially said that neither had any conversations with the ex-Governor about whom to support to fill Obama's seat. Did that make any sense? Why would he have not talked with Blago? But as soon as the seat-selling scandal broke, Obama and his top aide denied any contact. Then, it transpired, that Emanuel did, indeed, visit with Blago. Later it turns out that Emanuel had multiple conservatives with Blago. The president and his Chief of Staff, before even taking office, were lying.
The moral disease seems rampant in the Left. Joe Biden, repeatedly, has said that a drunk driver killed his wife and child. There was virtually no evidence of alcohol by the other driver in the crash and, in fact, there was evidence that the crash was caused by the wife, not the poor wretch condemned to be the straw man for one of Biden's favorite lies.
John Kerry claims to recall spending Christmas on a gunboat in Cambodia in 1968 under President Nixon: perhaps in an alternative, Bizarro universe; even those men who served with Kerry on swift boats and who supported him said, well, no, we were never in Cambodia, and Richard Nixon, of course, was not president in December 1968.
Al Gore, well, where to begin? He began to confront the tobacco companies forcefully after his sister died from lung cancer. (That same month, he got a $1,000 speaking fee from U.S. Tobacco; he voted against raising taxes on tobacco three times after that and even supported discounted tobacco; he campaigned in 1988, four years after his sister's death, bragging about his work in planting and cultivating tobacco.) He authored the Earned Income Credit (although the bill became law in 1975, two years before he was entered Congress.)
This list goes on and it is depressingly familiar. Leftist Democrats simply lie about everything that they think will help them politically and that they think they can get away with. The Liars Party (also, to an amazing degree, the Lawyers Party) does not care about any of the policies which it professes to advocate.
Why, for example, would Gore be deeply involved in the tobacco industry if he thought it was bad? Why would Edwards have a profoundly hurtful affair behind the back of his dying wife unless all his blathering about the rights of women was just vote-getting flattery? Or why would Clinton and his wife defend him from all the women who accused him of acting like precisely the sort of man whom they argue the federal government should do more about? If Pelosi cared about water boarding as "torture," then she should have sought all she could and done all she could in 2002 -- even she acknowledges she was either truly ignorant or too profoundly indifferent to research or to act.
Why, for example, would Gore be deeply involved in the tobacco industry if he thought it was bad? Why would Edwards have a profoundly hurtful affair behind the back of his dying wife unless all his blathering about the rights of women was just vote-getting flattery? Or why would Clinton and his wife defend him from all the women who accused him of acting like precisely the sort of man whom they argue the federal government should do more about? If Pelosi cared about water boarding as "torture," then she should have sought all she could and done all she could in 2002 -- even she acknowledges she was either truly ignorant or too profoundly indifferent to research or to act.
Members of the Liars Club do not even merit the dubious honor of being called Leftist ideologues. They are simply utterly selfish and profoundly amoral liars who view the moral conscience and fidelity to truth of conservatives as more dangerous to them than any notions of market theory, natural rights, or rule of law.
The rhetoric of the Liars Club means nothing -- nothing at all. Barney Frank, when he lied about the Republicans passing a bill to reform the banking industry before Frank became a committee chair in 2007 -- which Barney Frank voted against! -- did not care about the truth. He cares about power. In a democracy in which the mainstream media actively conceals the lies of the Left, then the Liars Club are vindicated: dishonesty is the best policy.
The rhetoric of the Liars Club means nothing -- nothing at all. Barney Frank, when he lied about the Republicans passing a bill to reform the banking industry before Frank became a committee chair in 2007 -- which Barney Frank voted against! -- did not care about the truth. He cares about power. In a democracy in which the mainstream media actively conceals the lies of the Left, then the Liars Club are vindicated: dishonesty is the best policy.
Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie, and his recently published book, The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.
