Lying (revised)

January 24, 2020

Lying is a serious and difficult subject. First off, lying, and not lieing, is the present participle of the verb lie. Second, who can honestly say they don’t get confused with lie, lay and lain as well as lay, laid, and laid. If you don’t get confused, you are lying. The first time I became aware of the word “lie” being used in public discourse was in 2009 when Congressman Joe Wilson yelled “You lie” during Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech. Politicians have accused each other of all sorts of awful things over the years, but, typically, lying was not one of them. He crossed a red lyin’.

Before lying, we had spinning. Political spin is the art of interpreting the same set of facts in a way more favorable to oneself. Also, spin could be choosing a different set of facts that you believe are more relevant. Now, we have “alternative facts,” which are just lies. Lying is just being lazy. Politicians and others can’t even be bothered anymore to spin because that takes too much work.

Now, during the impeachment trial, political commentators have no compunction against using the “L” word. I am sure it has nothing to do with the fact that our current President has mainstreamed lying. He is at more than 15,000 lies and counting according to the Washington Post, but who’s counting? In the just released book, “A Very Stable Genius,” Trump is quoted as saying “It’s all an act. I can’t believe people haven’t caught on.” Trump once told CBS reporter Lesley Stahl that he deliberately used the term “fake news” to deflect from and discredit negative media coverage of his presidency. He is lying in plain sight.

I am not sure which is worse. Lying as a defensive mechanism or lying as a premeditated strategy to deceive. I need to lie down, and lay my head on a pillow.