How to tell when a president lies

When President Obama gave a speech about how he would handle the unfolding scandal of the NSA spying revelations and what changes he would seek, he used (in my opinion) an old technique of speaking in half-truths. That’s just enough truth to be credible, but leaving plenty of wiggle room for later denials.

President Obama hopes that his speech delaying significant action on doing much about how and what the NSA collects on American citizens will placate the public. More importantly, make them forget and accept the capture of almost everything as the new normal.

After all, as I hear all of the time, if you haven’t done anything wrong, why not let our government collect unlimited amounts of information on you. The problem is that although you may not have done anything wrong, if our government thinks you have you’re in serious trouble. I wonder if there will be any public outrage if our government decides to open all of our postal mail… for our protection and to keep us safe.

If the terrorist elements in our country start using postal mail, to deliver encrypted USB drives, for example, then it will be an invitation for our government to read all of your letters. It will be for our protection and to keep us safe.

And they will, or rather scan them to convert them to electronic words and store them at a NSA facility. They will hope that you don’t hand-write correspondence, as scanning won’t work on those. Fortunately, few people do. It will be for our protection and to keep us safe.

When you repeat a lie enough times it becomes the new normal, and as the public hears the same thing over and over again, it becomes the truth. It will be for our protection and to keep us safe.

For example, we’re repeatedly told about how the NSA and other agencies keep us safe by stopping the bad guys from doing another 9/11. They talk about the need for knowing all about every American’s private business, correspondence, location and whatever, including tight airport security and anything needed to control the public. It will be for our protection and to keep us safe.

They never mention how tons of illicit drugs flood across our borders and are not stopped. What will happen if just a few hundred pounds of Semtex is added to the drug shipments?

So how can you tell if a president or a politician is lying. Just look if the person giving the speech has a sea of American flags behind him or her.

In poker language it’s called a tell, a signal that when the other player does something it’s a giveaway about what poker hand they have.

It’s a sea of faux patriotism, designed to discourage any critique of the message no matter how vacuous it is. It will be for our protection and to keep us safe.