August 11, 2009

Does Obama Have An Inherent Right to Lie?

Jeffrey Lord has an interesting piece up over at American Spectator comparing Linda Douglass and Arthur Sylvester, the press secretary for Robert McNamara during the Vietnam War. He contends that Linda Douglass is Sylvester's intellectual descendent in her eagerness to lie to the American people on behalf of Barack Obama about the actions of their government.

He reprints a quote of David Halberstam's, The Best and the Brightest, which seems extraordinarily timely:
In Saigon…Arthur Sylvester, McNamara's press officer, was
arguing with a young New York Times reporter named
Jack Langguth over the government's lack of credibility in its
Vietnam statements. Sylvester said that although it was
unfortunate, there were times when a government official had to
lie, but that he, Sylvester, as a former newsman, had a genuine
objection to lying. Langguth answered that if you had a real
objection to lying, you would quit, and the failure to resign
meant that you had a soft job where you could exercise power,
and that your principles were secondary. Sylvester looked at
him almost shocked. "If you believe that, you're stupid and
naïve, (said Sylvester) and you didn't seem that way at lunch
earlier today."

Pretty damning indictment of Ms. Douglass, wouldn't you say? Shouldn't we expect the truth from our government? Don't we have the right to the truth? Well, Sylvester had something to say about that too:
"Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you
the truth, than you're stupid. Did you hear that? -- Stupid."

Just stop and let that sink in for a minute. So when it comes to ObamaCare, are you really looking into the bills before Congress or are you just being stupid?

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