Half Lies

So what’s worse, a lie or a half lie?

We have been treated in recent weeks to a truly world-class demonstration of half lies, something which sounds as if it were half as bad as a complete lie, but which I think is twice as bad. Or maybe thrice.

That’s because there is a pinch of truth in a half lie. Sometimes, it is mostly true. And, nowadays, the engine driving the half lie is not itself a lie, just a glaring omission. “Everything I say is the truth,” the half-lier can proudly say. And, they are correct.

Technically, that is.

The only time it is really a lie, in the legal sense at least, is when the half-lier has vowed to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. That is a concept rarely upheld in courts. After all, the whole truth can’t be told because of things like admissibility, and omission is usually not considered a lie unless you are caught red-handed.

Let’s look at an example. “The President was never the target of an investigation. This proves he is innocent.”

Well, if your investigation is to see if Russia worked behind the scenes to influence our election, you wouldn’t start an investigation by looking at the President. You would look for signs that the election was being influenced, and if any members of his administration had any secret meetings or private discussions with any powerful Russians.

It’s not the kind of thing the President would do himself, any more that Richard Nixon would break into the Democratic offices in the Watergate Hotel himself.

Or how about “I never had sex with that woman,” which switches the whole debate to what sex really is. There’s a whole college course in that question. Heck, get thee to a law library and see how New York or California or Ohio defines sexual assault in the third degree.

Which shouldn’t be the point of a sexual assault charge. But, there goes those darn half lies again. It’s not someone saying “I didn’t do it,” and actually meaning that they didn’t do it. It only means they didn’t do one tiny bit of what the legal definition requires.

And, by this little obfuscation, about one-third of the country will actually believe the whole denial. As the comedian once said: “what a country!”

Dealing with liars is really simple. You catch them red-handed, saying something which can’t possibly be true, and yell “liar,” then stop believing them.

Dealing with half-liars is much harder, because once you catch them, they simply change the subject and talk on and on about the true part of their statement, the technical denial.

“We didn’t design this car to cheat on emissions tests,” one car company can say, quite truthfully. They designed the car for a lot of reasons, to meet a lot of needs at whatever price they decided would be best. Emissions cheating was just co-incidental.

Ever watch a commercial for a wonderful insurance plan, only to read the really small print at the bottom of the screen that tells you it’s not available in all states?

Well, these little things matter, only because we are a nation that has been sopping up half lies at a record rate.

Let’s guess how many will be told when the Senate comes out with its new health care plan.

It will doubtless be great (for some) and cover everyone who needs coverage (at a price) and even cover all your pre-existing conditions. That is, it will cover any condition that was discovered between March 18, 2015 and March 20, 2015. Or, something like that. After all, I may be half-lying.