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Friday, June 16, 2006

Lies that are not Lies

Because some very nice people do not like reading political opinion pieces and otherwise read this blog, I am warning here and now-- partisan political discussion ahead. I do not want to be responsible for any high blood pressure!

There are lies that are okay and lies that are not. You can now know which are which, at least according to the political party holding the er uh moral high ground.

For the Republican base, the good news is Karl Rove will not be indicted for lying (which from what I can tell is the correct, legal decision given the circumstances). Rove has long since gone past being the sort of man who minds lying to most of the people while he manages to tell the truth to who he must. Some might call that hypocrisy but I doubt he does. He would have to indeed have an amazing brain just to keep track of it all. It also takes a lot of chutzpah to knowingly be testifying to an investigation and being truthful about the things that could have sent him to prison while letting his president walk in front of all the American people and say -- nobody in my administration was involved in the outing of that CIA agent. Did Bush know? Given my opinion of Bush, I suspect if he didn't, it was because he didn't want to.

So in public Rove smiled and kept his own mouth shut letting his spin machine work while he told government investigators the truth-- except, of course, for anything they found out he hadn't told the truth about but he simply had forgotten.The base apparently doesn't care about political lies. To them the excuse is everybody does it. All that matters is winning.

Reminder to add notation to the Ten Commandments sprinkled around the country. False witness only refers to government proceedings. Or to save doubts, you could cover that commandment with bird droppings. After all, isn't that Bush's nickname for Rove-- Turd Blossom? See how easy this is. It doesn't even have to be true. Just a question...

When Bill Clinton lied, it was not okay because he lied in legal testimony (not to mention he was part of godless liberals who secretly-- well not too secretly since this bunch's new bestseller knows all about it-- want to destroy the nation). I am not sure if lying would have been okay about blow jobs otherwise. Guess he could have said-- I forgot; but I doubt Hillary would have bought that. Considering how many women Clinton probably had and has, the rest of us might have.

Still we are not talking about him, after all what kind of leader would you expect from the 'godless' left. No, this is about ones on the morally superior ground. The latest New York Times bestseller (obviously made so by conservatives) is one claiming loudly-- as usual-- that liberals are godless. How does lying fit into that conservative's superior moral agenda?

The author's latest extremist effort is not being promoted by lies... mostly anyway. It's about interpretations and innuendos. It's okay to ask the question whether certain women, whose husbands were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack, might have had men who wanted to divorce them. Not that the writer had to have any evidence-- nor was this a lie even. The question was just asked-- how do we know? (four kids is not evidence)

What do you think the odds are that if these women had used their position to support Bush's agenda, it would have been just fine with that writer (who shall remain nameless here because she's only one of a group). It was not okay because the widows were politically incorrect-- to the right.

So in these cases, it appears lying or distorting (and I could write a book on that but they've already been written) is fine with the conservative base, which makes books like this last one an instant hit. By the way, if you aren't sure if you are in the right wing base-- if you bought that book, you are; and if you chuckled over how Rove pulled this off and thought glad he's on our side, you are.

After all, if lies are for a good cause, which in this case was about keeping any of this under wraps before the 2004 election and the Libby trial on the other side of the 2006 election, the morally superior bunch are fine with it. It takes a high level of hypocrisy to do what Rove did; but heck, so does supposedly improving opportunity in this country by taking government money from programs for the poor and even Veterans to hand to the rich. Chutzpah is a virtue in and of itself, isn't it? Not to mention, even godly groups sometimes need a man like Rove out there. Dirty tricks don't just do themselves.

5 comments:

robin andrea said...

Dirty tricks don't just do themselves.
What a great line! I wrote a Karl Rove rant yesterday and thought about posting it today, but just couldn't wrap my brain around my rage and sadness as well as you have here. What has happened to our country is a shame. The discourse is coarse and mean-spirited. I don't remember ever feeling as alienated or dispirited about our future as I do now.

goldenlucyd said...

Rain,
Your farm posts are my favorites. I just bookmarked the Shearing story--how beautiful.
However the post today nearly sent me into apoplexy. I simply can't see, hear or think about these cretins in Washington---and I don't mean just the GOP. The "end" justifies the means takes on whole new meaning if you anthrophomorphize a bit. I'd rather think about naked ewes.

Rain Trueax said...

I have felt the same way, Robin. And it's why I try to stay positive as much as possible with nature and animals and spiritual things to feel good about. I feel you do that well with your blog

Lucy, I do respect and understand how you feel and that's why whenever I do a political post-- and sometimes I just can't hold my opinions in (The other side sure isn't); but whenever I do that, I will put something at the start to warn people who simply don't want to think about it right now.

What I wish now is I could see a viable third party system, but I don't think it's possible. I am also not sure who I'd respect enough to lead the political system out of this mess even if there was one. It seems by the time the men and women reach the top politically, they have sold themselves so many ways to Sunday that they don't have anything left inside to know what integrity would even be.........

Dick said...

I think you just said it in your last comment, Rain. Neither "side" is a very good choice, especially when the only choices they seem to offer us are extremists to the left or right. We need to return to true citizen politicians and get away from the professional ones who seem to always sell their souls (and votes) to various special interests. Maybe it is time for term limits but it would need to apply to all states to be effective.

I often wish there were a federal level people's initiative process where things could originate with the public & be voted on! One thing I think would improve the process would be a rule that they cannon append anything to a bill that doesn't relate directly to the bill to which they are appending it. They will never do that on their own, however.

It appears to me that the best thing we can do is to try to maintain a fairly even balance of the two sides which sort of forces them to compromise on most issues. I guess it will be time to vote for the Ds this fall.

Ingineer66 said...

I heard a story on the radio last week about people wanting to start a viable third party here in California. I dont know if it has much hope as the 2 main parties have so much power and money to fight any legal or political challenges. I think many thinking Americans are getting tired of the beltway mentality. We need people to go to Washington to serve not to cash in.