Posted on 06/26/2003 9:02:20 AM PDT by Congressman Billybob
A favorite song of mine is the instant classic by Fleetwood Mac, "Little Lies." This song repeatedly uses these two lines, "Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies." The first subject, as you might have guessed, is Hillary Clinton's new book, jocularly entitled "Living History."
Two of the women in the street who made comments on TV about Hillary and her book came close to the truth. One said, "Well, that's her story." Another said, "She had to believe that." We are dealing, of course, with the only non-boring part of Hillary's tome, the few paragraphs about Bill and Monica, and Hillary's alleged reaction to that. I believe that the publisher deliberately released those tidbits early to create buzz to help sell the book.
We now know that Bill Clinton has been a horndog all his life, to use an excellent word from hereabouts. He has been chasing and bedding women other than his wife ever since they were first engaged. Furthermore, Hillary was involved from the get-go in suppressing the various women's stories, savaging them, and helping Bill ride out the bimbo eruptions.
With a normal wife married to a philandering husband, sometimes the wife reaches a sad bargain. She pretends, both to herself and others, that her husband is a decent man because otherwise she would be forced to make a decision and perhaps to end a marriage she clings to. If that were a true description of Hillary – which is the version her own account alleges – she is devoid of clear-headed judgment in a crisis that is a bare minimum requirement for anyone to deserve high office.
Given the joint history of Bill and Hillary, it is absolutely clear that she was never deceived. She knew and accepted this Faustian bargain. Some of the people who are voluntarily accepting her lies in this equation are press commentators whose bias requires them to pretend to believe Hillary. But the largest group of lie-consumers are the poor fools among the public who take the well-crafted Hillary story as resembling truth.
The story of public lying for fun and profit includes, of course, many other participants. The New York Times makes the list, again, with a particularly gross column by their resident harridan, Maureen Dowd. This week she refers to Justice Clarence Thomas as "barking mad" for his dissent filed in the Michigan Law School admissions case.
Why is Justice Thomas barking mad? Because he refuses to accept Dowd's vision of what grateful blacks ought to believe – in accord with the editorial policies of the Times. Justice Thomas has been there, done that, and succeeded against high odds. And he had the nerve to quote the great Abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, at the beginning of his dissent.
Such sources are not as good, by any means, as the home-grown bigotry of both Dowd and the Times. Again, who is lying to whom? Is Dowd sufficiently stupid to believe what she writes? Same answer as with Hillary – neither of these women are dumb enough to believe what they write. Dowd is telling the lies that her position and her paper require. The victims of the lie are, again, willing recipients.
The readers of the Times, like abused wives, are afraid to accept the truth. If they did, they'd have to change their world views and admit that much of their lives have been spent on false purposes. So they willingly, even eagerly, accept the lies.
Yet another example, but with a twist. Rep. Dick Gephardt, former Minority Leader of the House and now a candidate for President, said this week: "When I'm President, we'll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day." Did Gephardt actually believe what he said?
We look to the backpedaling that his staff engaged in the very next day. They stressed that no President has the power by Executive Order to reverse any decision of the Supreme Court. Instead, they explained that Rep. Gephardt merely meant that he would promote racial "diversity" by use of such Orders.
In this case, Rep. Gephardt did not lie. He blurted out the plain, unvarnished truth about his intentions. (Remember Clinton aide Paul Begala who said, "Stroke of a pen. Law of the land. Pretty cool."?) Gephardt said what he hoped was true. But he was so obviously wrong about the separation of powers under the Constitution, that his staff had to beat a hasty retreat. The lie was in the next-day rescue program. The usual suspects were expected to accept this lie for the usual reasons, namely the Democrats in the press and the Democrats loose among the public.
Public lying is not restricted either to individuals or Americans. Mexico rose to the head of the class last week when it arrested "Dog" Chapman and several of his associates for making a citizen's arrest of Andrew Luster on the streets of Puerto Vallarta. Luster is the serial rapist from California who was convicted and sentenced to 124 years in prison while he was on the lam in Mexico. "Dog" and his associates were bounty hunters who were paid by bail bondsmen to return criminals who skip bail.
Now at the same time Mexico allows Armando Garcia to run free in that nation. Garcia is reliably charged with the execution killing of David March, a Deputy Sheriff in Los Angeles County. Mexico will not capture Garcia and turn him over to US authorities, because he faces the death penalty if convicted of this particular murder.
Where are the lies here? Mexico claims to be looking out for the interests of its own citizens. But neither allowing this and other murderers to go free, nor arresting men who did the policemen's work for them by capturing an escaped criminal, contribute to the safety and security of citizens of Mexico. Quite the contrary.
Again, this is a necessary lie. Were the government of President Vincente Fox to face the truth about the high level of criminality which is usual in Mexico, it would then be compelled to act. And many Mexicans, including its powerful criminal elements, would be very upset about that. So, for reasons suitable to all concerned, the government lies to the people, and the people willingly accept the lies.
Speaking of official lies brings us to the latest public atrocity from France. A week after Hamas took public credit for slaughtering 17 people on a bus in Jerusalem, France is having trouble defining Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Again, this is a necessary lie. President Chirac of France knows exactly which part of the French populace provide his support. He must lie to his chosen constituents to protect his position. They must accept his lies, or they would have to face up to the steady disintegration of their nation and their society and do something about it. That's a tall order. So, like abused wives ....
"Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies ...." It is a story as old as mankind, told well by Fleetwood Mac. Every week will bring more examples of people, and nations, that ought to know better, telling lies to people as the easy way out. And many people voluntarily accept what most of them know are lies, because they cannot accept the alternative.
The strongest response to all such individuals is to drive the elected ones out of office, and shame the non-elected ones out of their positions of authority as columnists, TV talking heads, etc. The best statement came from Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan Jessup in "A Few Good Men." Testifying on the stand he combines a growl and a yell to say, "Truth? You can't handle the truth!"
There is an endless supply of official liars, and of people who feel obliged to believe, or pretend to believe, those lies. Boy howdy, do we have our work cut out for us.
- 30 - (C) 2003 Congressman Billybob. All rights reserved.
Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.
Well alrighty, that means Sodomy will be reinstated as against the law in Texas! Yippee! :-)
Great writing congressman sir, and "Tell me lies" is one of my favorites too. I used to sing it about every guy I dated! :-)
Billybob
You are making the assumption that Hil is a woman based on what? LOL
Certainly, Hillary isn't that stupid, but I wonder about idealogues such as Dowd. Do they live in their fantasy world so long that it assumes reality? Are they just twitty to start. One can be crazy without being stupid.
As a writer, Dowd will no doubt use hyperbole. It's expected. But Dowd is so consistently off-the-mark and apparently incapble of any rational argument that I wonder if she isn't just nuts.
Nice expose!
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