In Defense of Deception

Politics is inherently dishonest. It’s like life that way. The trick is for a person to be honest with themselves. What seems to bring people down is their ability to believe their own lies. Barack Obama may well survive the comments of his pastor because he knows exactly where the reverend’s beliefs separate from his own. Where he chooses to place his truth should largely be up to the public. After all, we’ll only see what we want anyway.

However, Mr. Obama has displayed an impressive ability to speak honestly about that which normally is so inflammatory, it is largely avoided by others. The obvious exception is when a person uses the issue against one they feel clearly is inferior to themselves in terms of record. Think Larry Craig.

The truth is we are all guilty of lying. We tell one boss one thing and another boss the opposite because the first boss cannot handle the truth or doesn’t remember their own lie. We neglect to tell our spouse about an expense to protect them from their own anxiety. We tell ourselves that our also being protected from that anxiety doesn't play into it. A candidate is dishonest about that which does not matter because that which does not matter seems to be all that matters. Clinton lied! Clinton lied! Well, whoop-dee-not-do. Bush lies, who dies? No one. A lie never killed anyone. Choosing to believe it? Maybe.

It falls on us. We have the government we deserve. We go out to the polls to ban a practice that doesn’t exist and while we’re there vote against a man who lied about something once. We’ll vote for a man who is honest about who he is. He doesn’t pretend to be a war hero when he’s not. He’s a real life cowboy, from Connecticut.

So how does this happen? How is it that we pick and choose the phony we find okay? How do we decide to believe the right lies? Does character matter? Define character.

What we seem to care about is that these people are better than we are. That’s character. And once we’ve bought that lie, we hate to be let down. So we deceive ourselves. McCain’s a hero, so vote for him. Heroism is what matters. It wont help with the economy or change the fact that he doesn't have a clue about the dynamics of the war he's running on, but maybe if we try hard enough we can fool the creditors into believing the money's comming in and convince the Shia they love the Sunni. Hillary’s the tough, go-getting, sensitive, caring, tough as nails, tried and true, invested, honest, nurturing fighter. We all decided on that, or at least one of those, a long time ago. We can’t stop now.

Lie to everyone else. To thine own self be true.