WOULD I LIE TO YOU?

George Washington once said “I cannot tell a lie. Yes, I did chop down your cherry tree, pa”. Bill Clinton said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky”. We then have a chap saying “It looks like me, it sounds like me but I am not sure it is me”. And the latest person to fit into the Hall of Fame is quoted as saying “As a responsible citizen, I will say again that I have never known or even met this woman before”.

The lie conundrum is simply to tell a lie and die, or tell the truth and die in shame. Or in a much simpler context, “I cannot tell a lie but then again I cannot tell the truth”, sounds pretty emphatic to me! There are two types of liars; those who lie because they are selfish and will lie to get what they want regardless, and those who feel telling the truth may cause pain and greater anguish to those around them. Ahem! The CCTV saga of a certain doctor seemed to have fitted in well on the latter.

Lying is unfortunately a part of human nature. I think we've all told a lie at some point in our lives, even if it is a small one. But we are relatively greenhorns compared to the politicians. Ever noticed why politicians lie so much? Or is it more befitting to say “which politician doesn't lie to the people?” I suppose they will not hesitate to lie at any available opportunity.

Even if we lost an island, given a small change of two little stones, our wise politician said it was win-win situation. I don’t know how to categorise the mathematics. Either we were not taught the basics of barter trades, or we are too complacent to pick up the details. Perhaps we should put some lice onto their head and make them scratch a bit more to come up with a better solution, or come up with a better lie. I say this because some politicians cannot tell the difference between the lice in the head from the lies in the mind. They certainly sound the same. Of course, you can choose to have one of the two, but if you are politician you can have both.

The US mustered all efforts to refrain from calling a lie a lie; they used more tactful terms to avoid the obvious. They use words like:
a. Exaggerate
b. Misled
c. Twist
d. Misstate
e. Overstretch
f. Distort
g. Bluffed
h. Manipulate
i. Credibility gap
j. Overselling
k. Facts overlooked
l. Misrepresented
m. Overplayed
n. Overstated
o. Questionable claim
p. Did not provide accurate picture

“As a responsible citizen, I will say again that I have never known or even met this woman before”. Should be rewritten as “The recent exaggerated links over this woman is being twisted. It was intentionally misstated, overstretched and distorted bluff, intentionally manipulated by others to incriminate innocent citizen like me. Considering the credbility gap in these allegations, I would say they are overselling and have facts overlooked. The public should know these rumours are misrepresented, overplayed and overstated. This is a questionable claim by them and they did not provide the accurate picture.”