Deceit in Politics: Why Just Accept It?

The last post on Donald Rumsfeld got me to thinking a little about how politics works in America. Politicians lie. We know it. We shrug and say, "that's politics."

Let me give you some examples. Karl Rove said he quit to spend time with his family. This is the standard-issue non-answer many politicians say when they leave office. Nobody believes it, but nobody calls it what it is: a lie.

Likewise, Rumsfeld resigned on a Monday, the news is held until Wednesday (after the election). They didn't just fudge the facts, they said he waited until after the election. Now we know that isn't true, but nobody's calling it what it is: a lie.

Politicians on both sides of the aisle do it, for sure. I personally don't believe that the Democrats do it quite as reflexively as Republicans do, but they all do it. And in most cases we don't call them on it; quite the contrary, we expect it.

The two examples above are relatively minor lies in the scheme of things, I suppose. Then again, so was "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Only in that case, we did call it what it was: a lie.

Maybe that's why they aren't called on it more often. . .look at the ridiculous lengths they took that.