Pinocchio's On Parade

Winston Churchill famously said, “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”  To judge by this standard, liberals, such as Barack Obama, must be guarding extraordinarily valuable truths.

The opposite, however, is the case.  The center they are protecting is hollow.  Liberalism has long since rotted out at the core.  As an ideology in crisis, it no longer provides valid answers to the problems we face.

Think about it!  What, if anything, are Obama and his entourage reluctant to lie about?  Is there any policy, foreign or domestic, that has escaped the stultifying hand of deceit?  So common has dishonesty become that it is no longer worthy of outraged notice.

Why is this so?  When public policies miscarry, those promoting them have two choices.  They can either admit their failures or lie about them.  Nevertheless, as ideologues, who believe they are infallible, liberals, in fact, have but one choice.  They can only lie.  The result: Pinocchio’s on parade.

What have liberals been wrong about?  Where can we begin?  Did they improve the economy as promised?  Six years have gone by and trillions of dollars were spent, but we still have the slowest recovery since the Great Depression.

As importantly, the administration routinely vows to grow the economy from the middle out.  In reality, the rich have done well and the poor receive larger transfer payments than ever, whereas it is middle class jobs and salaries that have gone on permanent hiatus.

Or how about education?  If we are no longer engaged in a race to the bottom, someone forgot to tell American students.  Despite the money expended trying to finance a college education for everyone, our young continue to lag behind the rest of the world.

Or what about race relations?  Do blacks and whites trust each other more now that we have an African-American president?  Actually, our president cannot even bring himself to admit that “hands up, don’t shoot” was based on a lie.

As for foreign policy, are we safer?  Claims that we are, are obviously absurd.  And why trash Netanyahu?  Or cozy up to the Iranians?  Or kowtow to Vladimir Putin?  Or allow the Chinese to hack into our secrets?  Such gross neglect can only be excused by lying.

Barack Obama is surely incompetent.  But the problem goes deeper.  He is the symbol of liberal ineptitude.  He has messed up ObamaCare, Benghazi, immigration, and the IRS not merely because he is a poor administrator, but because liberal prescriptions cannot work.  They are grounded in ignorance and wishful thinking.

And so not only does the president lie; so do those who work for him—whether they are in the State Department, the Department of Justice, or the EPA.  All, including Hillary, must participate in the cover-ups if they are to prevent their doctrinal bankruptcy from being revealed.

Nor is this all.  The liberal media are complicit in the lies.  As card caring liberals, reporters and editors conspire to keep the public misinformed.  They routinely reinterpret failure as success and refuse to report disconcerting news. 

Thus, rather than embarrass the president, they will not cover stories such as Jonathan Gruber’s admission that the public was intentionally deceived about ObamaCare.

Nor indeed is that all.  Ordinary Democrats, what were once called “knee-jerk liberals, do not want to know the truth.  Whatever the scandal rocking the capital, they prefer to discount it.  Hence they look away.  Far from demanding the facts, they cease paying attention to uncomfortable details.

And so lying has become the new norm!  It does not shock because the alternative would be to admit that liberalism is a god that has failed.  People high and low might have to recognize that their political shield is a moth eaten sieve.  As a result, they turn to transparent fabrications to do the job.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Profession of Sociology

Kennesaw State University