The Truth Will Set You Free
That saying, the truth shall set you free, has been around for years but in Washington, DC they don’t seem to get it. For some reason they just keep shooting themselves in the foot.
The most recent case in point is the embattled Attorney General. Not a fan to begin with – anyone who calls the Geneva Conventions “quaint” seems a poor choice for such a position – his current performance under scrutiny for the U.S, Attorney firings, confirms my lack of enthusiasm. As Charles Krauthammer pointed out in The Washington Post, “The attorney general appoints prosecutors who have law enforcement priorities reflecting the policy preferences of the president.” Sounds like justification for the firings doesn’t it? But Gonzales instead of stating that from the get go and leaving it at that, seemed to feel the need to make himself look innocent. Can’t help but wonder why – what did he have to hide? Whatever it was, he wound up making himself look guilty and destroyed his credibility in the process. The truth would have set him free or at least left him with whatever credibility he had coming in.
Rember Watergate?. It was not the break-in that destroyed Nixon, it was the attempted cover up. If they had just picked someone to fall on his sword and let the investigation end that way, everyone else would have come out reasonably unscathed. It is a bit of a stretch to think of that as “the truth” setting them free, but it would have been closer to the truth than what they did. And it would have set most of them free.
Bill Clinton’s fall from grace could have ended differently if he had just fessed-up. There is nothing the public takes to heart more than a repentant sinner. But instead of admitting the error of his ways and promising to do better, he went to ridiculous lengths of rationalization trying to look innocent. All he got for his efforts was to go from looking guilty to looking like a guilty liar. Even now, years later, his idiotic statements are fodder for the comics. And this from a Rhodes Scholar! What was he thinking?
The list goes on and on – Iran-Contra, Ted Kennedy in Chapaquitic, Scooter Libby, and of course our current President who seems totally incapable of admitting his mistakes. Even in the face of repeated proof that what he said was not true, he never says, “I’m sorry, I was wrong.” Instead he just changes his story and goes on as if the new story is just an addendum to the old one even if it contradicts it. The connection between this behavior and the continuing downward slide in his credibility rating doesn’t seem to register with him. There is a little thing called “truth”, Mr. President. Try it, you might like it… and you can bet we will!