Lyin’ Politicians? Weellll, Maybe

by The Windjammer

There was a flurry of excitement over Bill Clinton’s recent statement in which he allegedly said that he had met two great popes, Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II.

Did he lie?

I have never considered Bill Clinton to be the most truthful of persons, even before he became president. I certainly stated a number of times after he became president that I doubted his veracity on several occasions and wrote some rather scathing articles about him.

There is a huge difference between a deliberate lie and a slip of the tongue. I believe the former president simply made one of the latter this time.
He lived during the times of at least five popes so far. Those were Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II. It is likely that he may live during the reign of at least one more. All of those definitely achieved some degree of greatness, some naturally more than others in the eyes of the beholders.

I have lived during the times of seven, although very briefly during the time of Benedict XV. That was my fault for not having been born a few years earlier. I lived very briefly under the reign of John Paul I. That was his fault for lasting less than a year. I also lived during the reign of Pius XI, which the other Bill missed by a few years.

I refuse to criticize even Mr. Clinton for what was, in my humble opinion, a mere lapse.

I also believe that the Third George did not lie when he mentioned weapons of mass destruction. The whole world knew that Ol’ Maddas had used such weapons against his own people and more than only a select few believed that he still had such weapons. That belief was not limited to the United States. There are those among us who are still positive that he had them in spite of all the coverups stating the contrary.
Did President Bush lie? Of course he did not.

That brings me to George Mitchell. Old George M. appeared a number of times on TV, most of them reruns, to announce that 95% of the Third George’s judicial nominees had been approved. I would like to know where he found those figures and what brand of calculator he used to compute the results so I won’t run out and buy one of those. You need to understand that he was trying desperately to convince the citizenry that the Democrat left wasn’t doing what it is guilty of doing.

If one takes a serious peek at the figures for federal judges much above the rank of flunky, he will find that the actual percentage is closer to 53%. That figure is open to some serious argument, but it is a few points short of the 95% claimed.

Did George Mitchell lie?

I’ll leave the answer to that question up to you.

It is a lead-pipe cinch that he will have convinced approximately 53% of an unsuspecting public which tends to believe what politicians say as long as they spell their names with a capital D or as long as it casts doubt on the guy who is now sitting in the White House scratching his graying head trying to determine how to get the next 95% of his nominees simply voted up or down.