TWO POLITICAL LIES
There are two kinds of lies.
The kind where you say something false and the kind where you don’t say something true.
One is a lie of commission and the other is a lie of omission, but both are willful acts of deception. Both are a sign of dishonesty and manipulation. Both are indicators that the person involved is not worthy of your trust.
Politics has recently given us examples of both types of lies -- one by a Democrat and the other by a Republican. One by the man who became president and the other by the woman who wanted to be First Lady.
Let’s take them in order.
Our first liar is Barack Obama. He told his lie a year ago. Shortly after being sworn in as president, he stood up and announced that he would close the Guantanamo Bay terrorist-detention center within a year.
He didn’t.
In fact, he didn’t even come close.
Which is what makes what he said a lie, as opposed to a broken promise. It was obvious when he said it that there was no realistic way that the Gitmo detention facility could be shut down in a year.
His advisors said so publicly at the time.
It was just too complex. It would taken a Herculean effort and a lot of lucky breaks to close it within a year. Barack Obama made no such effort and had no such breaks.
And so it is that, a year later, he has resolved the status of only about 20 percent of the detainees at Gitmo. The closest he has come to finding a new home for the prisoners is the recent discussion about buying an empty state prison in Illinois, but that is nothing better than a maybe for tomorrow.
He wants civilian trials for some detainees -- with all the rights afforded American citizens -- and some he has released to Saudi Arabia and Yemen, with unhappy results.
But essentially, a year later, Gitmo is pretty much the same place it was when he made his promise. And it being likely that he knew it would be that way, he lied when he promised it would be gone in a year.
Ironically, he lied to his supporters. The people who voted against him didn’t want Guantanamo closed in the first place, and most others didn’t care. The only people who cared about his promise were the true-blue liberals who voted for him.
So he lied to his people.
Just like Cindy McCain.
She told her lie throughout 2008.
Her lie of omission -- failing to tell people something that is true -- ran the length of her husband’s presidential campaign and only came out last week.
Perchance you saw it.
A photograph of Cindy McCain in heavy eye liner, her hair mussed up, and a strip of duct tape over her mouth. Penned above her right cheek were the letters “N” and “O.” Below them was the letter “H” and the number “8.”
No hate -- with a special Californian twist thrown in. Proposition 8 was a ballot initiative that handily passed and which forbad gay marriage. Gay activists have vilified anyone who stood in support of the proposition.
Cindy McCain’s objective is to support gay marriage. Which it is completely her right to do.
It’s interesting, though, that during the presidential campaign, as she barnstormed the country and spoke from the dais of the Republican National Convention, she never mentioned that she was in favor of gay marriage.
It just never came up.
I wonder why.
Was it because she has only recently considered the issue and has become a poster girl for gay marriage? Or is it more likely that she feels about gay marriage today the same way she has always felt about gay marriage.
And maybe she kept that quiet so as not to hurt her husband’s political prospects.
Maybe as she and here husband stood before the Republican National Convention she realized that if she came out in support of gay marriage the GOP, its voters and the people back home would not understand. Maybe it would torpedo her husband’s campaign by smashing its façade of conservatism.
Either way, she didn’t say anything.
And that is a lie.
She hid her feelings to protect her own political interests. That is a lie of omission.
Every bit as deceptive as Obama’s.
There are two kinds of liars.
Unfortunately both political parties seem to produce an ample supply of each.
- by Bob Lonsberry © 2010
