Does Truth Even Matter Anymore?

By now we've all heard of the big story of NBC Nightly News anchor, Brian Williams, who has been suspended from his job for six months for lying exaggerating what really happened on at least one of his reports from the field. 

Mr. Williams began in 2003 by reporting from Iraq that two helicopters that were flying in front of the one he was on had taken ground fire, including RPGs. Within a few years he had changed that story to say that choppers in his group had taken fire and by 2010 he was telling Letterman that his chopper was hit by an RPG and they had to make an emergency landing in the desert, only to be rescued at the last minute by an American patrol.

The problem is - only the first story was true. When former military members who were there with Williams went public and said his story was untrue Williams lied again by saying he "misremembered" the events as they happened. I'm not sure how one can "misremember" whether or not their helicopter took fire but what Williams didn't do was apologize in any meaningful way.

"Misremembered" is the latest term used to replace the word "lied." Up until now the word has been "misspoke." America listens to the lies, listens to the spin when the person does their best to get out from under the lies, and takes it all in stride. But when did the truth become irrelevant in America.

President Obama has been caught in several lies since his campaign began in early 2008. The now infamous "If you like your plan, if you like your doctor, you can keep them," has not only been proved false but proved a blatant lie. The President knew, when he was saying it, that it wasn't true, yet he repeated it at least 22 times (video record) over a period of four years.

President Obama said he would not allow lobbyists in his administration. There are currently at least 64 former lobbyists working in his administration today.

Obama said that Bush's raising of the national debt by $4 trillion was "unpatriotic" yet he himself has raised it over $8 trillion and suddenly that's no longer unpatriotic. And he tries to hid the debt behind the decreased deficit - a completely different thing.

David Axelrod, former adviser to the President, said in his new book that President Obama lied about his stance on same sex marriage in 2008 (he was against it at that time) because he didn't want to lose black voters (who are largely against same sex marriage), particularly in the South.

I could go on for a while but I'll stop with one more example - Benghazi. The President and his administration lied repeatedly about what really happened in Benghazi and the cause of the incident. And we still have no idea where the President was that night.

So what do people say when the lies are pointed out beyond a shadow of a doubt? The most common answer from the left is "Bush lied about WMDs," which is completely irrelevant and it has now been proved that Bush wasn't lying. WMDs were discovered all over Iraq.

The next most common answer is "All presidents lie." OK - perhaps that's true but when did it become acceptable?

Richard Nixon was caught lying about the Watergate break-in. He resigned rather than face impeachment charges. Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post investigated reports on Watergate and discovered the White House connection. The Washington Post is a liberal newspaper but back then it wasn't so much about political ideology but about truth. Woodward is a journalist - period.

Bill Clinton was impeached, albeit unsuccessfully, for lying about having a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky. He lied before and during the hearing. Hillary lied as well, pretending it didn't happen when she knew it did. The impeachment failed then 'ol Bill admitted that he'd had the relationship with Lewinsky after all. It was then swept under the rug.

In 2008, Hillary Clinton lied about landing in Bosnia under sniper fire, saying that her reception ceremony had to be cancelled because they had to run from the plane with their heads down because of the sniper. Video of her landing and reception proved the sniper incident never happened. She went on to be Secretary of State where she lied about the Benghazi incident. She will most likely be the Democrat Presidential candidate in 2016. 

So where does the difference come from? Brian Williams, whose appearance on the Nightly News is comforting to some but doesn't effect American policy, foreign relations, the economy or health care, gets suspended for telling a lie and there are numerous calls for his termination from both sides of the aisle. Hillary Clinton lied about Bosnia and about Benghazi and millions of people want her to be, and say she deserves to be, the one who leads our nation after Obama.

Things that make you go "Hmmmmmm."

In other news, the White House is now saying that climate change is a larger threat to the American people than is ISIS. Really? How many Americans have died in the last six months due to climate change versus ISIS? Of course, under the "science" of climate change if there is a rain storm and someone gets hit by lightning they will blame man-made climate change for it - because no one has ever been killed by lightning before climate change. And if someone dies because of the massive winter storms going on in New England right now that will be the fault of global warming climate change as well. But thinking people know the truth. 

They are also saying that ISIS is not an existential threat because they are not here attacking us on our own soil. But gee - by that logic Germany wasn't an existential threat to us in 1941. They weren't here on our soil. But they were seen as an existential threat. And what did we do? We sent massive numbers of troops to Europe to defeat them.

So my question to those who believe we should do nothing about ISIS because they're not currently an existential threat is - why do you wish to let them be before doing anything to stop them? If we had done that with Germany, Hitler may have conquered all of Europe before we did anything. He would have been stronger and more difficult to defeat. ISIS is the same. They are growing larger and strong daily. Do you really want to wait until they take a larger portion of the Middle East and become a world class power before we do anything? Really?

The problem with leadership from behind is that the bad guys gain strength. We need to wipe ISIL off the face of the map. We'll never get them all, since they're now all over the world (including our own country thanks to Obama's nonexistent border security). But the largest concentration of them is in Iraq and Syria and that's where we need to take it to them.

But we all know the Obama administration isn't going to do that, regardless of what he says. His air campaign is mostly useless and his new, proposed ground campaign will most likely be the same. He has not stomach for the fight against radical Islam. He won't even admit who and what they are. Every day he proves what a non-leader he really is. Jimmy Carter would be better.