Franken-Lies-And-the-Lying-Liars-Who-Tell

43
What Is a Lie?
Throughout this book I've used the terms "lie," "liars," "lying," and "O'Lie-lly" rather, you
might say, liberally. Calling someone a liar is a serious charge. It's not quite as bad as calling
someone a "traitor," as Ann Coulter does in her new book, The Treason Diet, but it's serious.
Telling the truth is something I take seriously, and I try to hold myself to an impossibly
high standard. For example, Coulter's book isn't really titled The Treason Diet. It's titled
Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism.
Yes. Lying is a serious matter. And calling the President of the United States a liar is
not something I say with any relish or self-satisfaction. I wish with all my heart that our
president wasn't a liar, or if he were, that he was more like President Clinton.
Bush lies about important things. Like the economy, his tax cuts, education, our reasons
for going to war, and drunk driving. But I think he lies only when he feels he has to. He
knows that, most of the time, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and Rush Limbaugh are
only too glad to do it for him.
And all the lies, small and large, add up. They create a worldview in which the mainstream
media is a liberal propaganda machine. In which Democrats are ruthless, manipulative
power grabbers. And also sissies. Where if you're poor, you should blame yourself, and for
everything else, blame Clinton. Where Democrats feed a culture of victimhood, but where the
real victims are decent, hardworking white males. The right-wing media's lies create a world
in which no one needs to feel any obligation to anybody else. It's a worldview designed to
comfort the comfortable and further afflict the afflicted.
In a surprising moment of candor, the Weekly Standard's Matt Labash told an interviewer:
The conservative media likes to rap the liberal media on the knuckles for not being
objective. We've created this cottage industry in which it pays to be unobjective. It
pays to be subjective as much as possible. It's a great way to have your cake and
eat it, too. Criticize other people for not being objective. Be as subjective as you
want. It's a great little racket. I'm glad we found it, actually.