Excellent Piece on Responsibility and Lies in This Administration

Many thanks to Buzzflash for pointing out this piece in the McCook Gazette by Mike Hendricks. It's worthy of read in total, but here are some snip-snips:

When anyone lies to you, even once, how can you ever know in the future when they're telling the truth? One lie puts a thought in our mind that the next story or alibi or explanation might be a lie as well. And when we find ourselves in that situation, trust is gone.

Lies damage personal relationships, often beyond repair, because we find ourselves questioning everything the other person says to us. It works the same way when our government does it too. How can we believe anything they say when it's apparently so easy for them to lie?

Do the American people understand what's going on or are they oblivious? Or worse, do they not even care? A recent Gallup poll suggests we do know and we do care.

Even though the public perception, because of the news media primarily, is that the President is a "popular" leader or even a "very popular" leader. The most recent poll, however, suggests otherwise. His approval rating has plunged to the lowest level of any president since World War II at this particular point in his second term.

All other presidents who served a second term had approval ratings well above 50 percent in the months following their election. Bush's current approval rating is 45 percent, well below the next lowest rating of 56 percent with Ronald Reagan in 1985.

These people are our leaders. We expect the truth from them. We all know that there is secret information they can't tell us about or that they need to color a certain way.

But when they use elective and appointive office to run nothing more than a public relations campaign that puts them in the best light and they only way they can do that is by lying to the American people, then that goes beyond the pale. Americans deserve better from their leaders.

Pat Tillman's dad said that the path to true patriotism is confronting your government when it lies

Oh wait. Did I mention Downing Street Memo? No?

Oh dear. Then, please.. visit Downing Street Memo.

I know, I know. I'm just freakin' adorable when I'm being subversive. ::smirk::