Lyin' Sack O' Taters

Lying has become the national pastime.  Forget about baseball or football or even the March Madness marketing campaign.

Lying is what we love to do.  Almost all of us. 

Maury, Springer, Dr. Phil.  The pop culture is full of outlets for lying and its' reward of 15 minutes of fame or more.

"Do I look fat in this dress?" "Do you really love me?" "Want more pasta?"

The answers to these ,and a multitude of other daily questions often end up as lies.  We justify the lies by telling ourselves that we don't want to "hurt the other guy's feelings."

If we told the truth we'd say "yes, my dear, you look like a house sheathed cotton" or "No" or "No..."

But we love the person who asked the question or, at least, we like them...a little.

Another reason it seems we lie is because we don't want to get into trouble.  The answer to, "did you eat the last cookie?" has got to be "no" because "yes" would land you in "your room" and render you cookieless for the rest of your childhood and that would be untenable.

So what should we do with this third, emerging, category of prevarication?  This business, most recently exemplified by the (dis)Honorable Ms. Michele Bachmann of Minneeesohta, of asserting falsehood as fact?

President Obama didn't spend 100 billion dollars on toilet paper, as Ms. Bachmann alleges (that is, in and of itself, a bold-faced lie perpetrated by me...here...in this post.  Let's see if it has legs...)

Yet the Congresswoman from The Gopher State persists in spreading these lies in a transparent attempt to denigrate and marginalize this president whom she seems to hate so much...because he's, a) smarter than she is, b) more popular than she is, c) black, d) all of the above.

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan did the same thing during their, thankfully, failed bid to take over The White House and The Naval Observatory, respectively.  (Fitting how the Vice President's residence is an observatory...a place for stargazing, which is what he ends up doing for the better part of 4 to 8 years...)

It seems that these sort of lies are meant only to damage reputations and gain political advantage.

Gone are the days of the fair fight and campaigns waged on the issues with worthy opponents engaged in intellectual "parry and thrust."

Gone are the days of intelligent arguments defended and debated in honest terms by men and women of high moral acumen.

Gone are the days of thoughtful and passionate persuasion.

Those days have been replaced by endless partisan hectoring and shallow reasoning.

Remember William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal?  Remember John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon?  Remember Lincoln-Douglas?  Well maybe not the last one unless you're at least 165 years old.  In that case you should stop reading and nap.  We want to see 166 now don't we...?

Differing opinions discussed with civility and mutual respect. 

"Sir, I wish to disagree in the humblest of ways. My good friend, I believe your logic to be flawed and I will, presently, demonstrate why...with your permission."

"By all means, my good man.  By all means, do continue..."

Can you imagine Bachmann, Hannity, Jones, Rove et al, engaged in that sort of repartee...?

Not these accusations and baseless charges upon which, incidentally, our lives depend.

Our lives...!