Let’s talk about lying of the political kind.
Fabrications, if you’re being fancy, have long held a prominent role in the American story, save, of course, for George Washington who legendarily confessed to his father that it was he who chopped down that doggone cherry tree, leading Mark Twain to assert he was morally superior to the father of our country because “Washington could not tell a lie, I can but I won’t.’’
History is full if grandiloquent liars, even the universally admired President Dwight David Eisenhower lied about Francis Gary Powers — a Jenkins native, by the way — and the U2 spy plane. Richard Nixon set new standards during Watergate and, just to prove fibbing is a bipartisan predilection, Bill Clinton may have uttered the presidential lie to top all presidential lies – “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky.’’
It is, indeed, a proud tradition.
One of my personal favorites involves a Kentucky Democrat, Brereton Jones, who entered the 1991 governor’s race as an opponent of capital punishment before he changed course, embracing the electric chair and endorsing its use not only to murderers but drug kingpins as well.
In explaining his switcheroo, Jones said he was campaigning somewhere in Western Kentucky when he encountered a young girl who explained to him that he really should be in favor of capital punishment, presumably to protect pretty young things like her. Jones said he was so overcome by the young girl’s logic that he changed his mind.
Yes, that really was his explanation.
There were questions regarding whether this little girl ever existed and that, perhaps, he actually was responding to polls showing his anti-capital punishment position was holding him back a might. He won. At any rate, unfortunately, no one ever identified the little girl who wanted to pull the switch at Eddyville.
Brereton wasn’t the only teller of tall takes in that campaign. His opponent, Larry Hopkins, a Republican congressman from Lexington, vowed during the campaign that, win or lose, he would not convert leftover campaign funds, as was allowed during the time, to his personal use.
Hopkins lost to Jones, decided not to run for re-election to the House in 1972 and converted $600,000 in leftover campaign funds to his personal use.
Kentucky, you sure can pick ‘em.
Now, however, the nation is saddled with the Heavyweight Champion of the World among liars, the nonpareil President-cum-Dictator Donald J. Trump, who wouldn’t recognize the truth if it came up and slapped him in the face. He brings to mind what novelist Mary McCarthy once said of fellow writer Lillian Hellman, “every word she writes is a lie, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’”
Trump’s status as a gold-encrusted prevaricator is unmatched. Washington Post fact-checkers cited 30,573 false or misleading statements he delivered during his first term in office, an average of 21 per day. He’s working assiduously to top that record this go-round.
Want proof? Here is Trump during a give-and-take with the press on Oct. 5 regarding the ongoing shutdown of the federal government:
“I call them Democrat layoffs. We have a record setting economy. Prices are way down. We’re doing better than the country ever has.’’
Okay, the first statement regarding “Democrat layoffs’’ is opinion, sort of, although Republicans control all three branches of government and he’s the one holding the cards on how to address the closure.
But the rest is hogwash. Inflation is on the upswing and the country, given its political divisions and steps like dispatching National Guard troops into American cities certainly isn’t better than it ever has been. Job growth is stagnant; his enhanced tariffs are creating havoc. The only part of the economy setting records is the stock market but only because of the surge in artificial intelligence investment, otherwise it too would be kicked to the curb.
That’s just one, quick little example of the sort of untrue mush he offers on a daily basis.
The disturbing thing about the lies that constantly spew from Trump’s mouth like oil from a gusher is that no one can tell whether he knows he’s circulating whoppers or if he really believes what he is saying. If he truly believes the nonsense he utters is the God’s honest truth the country is in deep trouble because it’s being run by a genuinely delusional 79-year-old man who can’t tell up from down.
Equally distressing is the sycophants, hangers-on and dullards who treat his baloney as if it were coming straight from the Bible, citing his horse manure as if they were quoting directly from the Sermon on the Mount. The best recent example of that is the shutdown and the Republican response to the Democratic demand that any continuing resolution to reopen the government has to address pending issues regarding health care.
A quick recap: Majority Republicans in the House and Senate failed to pass a budget by the Oct. 1 deadline, requiring them to seek a continuing resolution to keep the government operating. Senate Democrats refused to go along, maintaining that any extension must contain a permanent extension of enhanced health insurance premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that are due to expire on Dec. 3. They also seek the restoration of about $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts enacted earlier this year under Trump’s so called One Big Beautiful Bill, which included an extension of tax cuts primarily aimed at the wealthy.
Republicans have refused to budge, thus keeping the Capitol locked, without explaining why they really oppose either item, both of which are politically popular. Polls, at least to this date, are placing responsibility for the shuttered doors on Republicans.
So the GOP has come up with an ingenious rationale for opposing the Democratic amendments – it would fund free health care for those they term illegal aliens, a sector of the population, it’s fair to say, that doesn’t carry popular favor right now.
You won’t find any language in the Democrat’s proposal that would offer free health care coverage to undocumented immigrants. It would revive the previous statute that makes medical care, under certain circumstances, to individuals who are in the United States legally, a group that includes refugees, people granted asylum, folks allowed to enter for humanitarian reasons and some victims of crimes like human trafficking.
These folks are not citizens but they are here legally despite GOP claims to the contrary. Even those folks under the Democratic changes will often have to wait years to gain eligibility and they can’t exceed certain income limits.
Undocumented immigrants under the demand are not eligible for Medicaid. Folks seeking asylum remain ineligible for Medicaid, Obamacare or any other federal government health program.
As James Thurber wrote, you could look it up. Yet Republicans continue to play the illegal alien card because it’s all they’ve got despite it being a big, fat lie. Either they are spreading the tale when they know it’s not true for political gain or they’re daft, have a brain the size of a pea, and shouldn’t be holding public office.
You choose.
Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, reputed to be one of the saner members of the Kentucky congressional delegation, that’s called damning with faint praise, by the way, offered this on X:
“Democrats shut down the government because Republicans won’t give almost $200 billion to illegal immigrants for health care. They can continue to deny it, but the American People know the truth.’’
The American people do know the truth and the polls show it. Ain’t the garbage being spread by the likes of Guthrie who, by the way, as chair of the House Commerce Committee, was responsible for pushing through the Medicaid cuts Democrats are seeking to restore. Those cuts are expected to result in 13.7 million people losing coverage by 2034. The law specifically prohibits undocumented immigrants from receiving Medicaid benefits and the Democratic proposal doesn’t change that.
And, of course, we have Rep. Andy Barr, R-Lexington, campaigning for an open Senate seat by convincing voters he and Trump are actually conjoined twins who share a brain so teeny it can’t be detected under an electron microscope.
“Democrats want to spend $200B on healthcare for illegal immigrants,’’ Barr said on X. “HELL NO. Kentuckians and Americans come FIRST — not illegals and Schumer’s open borders agenda. I can’t wait to fight this in the Senate!’’
Yeah, we can hardly wait.
What neither Guthrie nor Barr seem capable of acknowledging is that if Congress fails to extend the enhanced subsidies called for in the Democratic demand, which lowered health insurance costs for 22 million people who obtain their coverage under what is popularly known as Obamacare, the average premium will increase by an estimated 75 percent, with the average enrollee paying about $700 more per year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates four million people will lose their coverage if the subsidies are allowed to lapse.
Guthrie and Barr are the type of deceivers operating these days, secure in knowledge that the Trump cult will eat up whatever they say that meets Donny’s demands, true or not. As long as they spread this hoo-hah the government will remain closed.
Any discourse about political fabricators can’t conclude without recalling the legend of the Earl of Louisiana, Gov. Earl Long, younger brother of the Kingfish, Huey Long, who successfully ran for governor three times, the last coming in 1956. The story, likely apocryphal, goes that Earl made plenty of campaign promises during that ’56 election and reclaimed his office in Baton Rouge. Various powerbrokers who received commitments from Earl to gain their support soon crowded the capital hallways.
Earl refused to see any of them. His haggard secretary, forced to deal with the crowd, finally asked him what he should tell them.
“Tell them their governor lied,’’ he said.