Whatever happened to honesty?  A majority of the public believes politicians lie.  What is most disconcerting is that the public accepts the lying and, in fact, endorses it.  A recent poll showed that people don't care if their favorite candidate lies in pursuit of getting elected (regardless of party).  Basically politicians know that people really do not want to hear the truth.  They want to be told what they want to hear.  (How do you think talk radio hosts build up such a following?) It stands the reason then, that the more politicians lie, feeding their target electorate what it wants to hear, the better the chance of getting elected.  Conversely, you must accuse your opponent of lying even if he isn't on the premise that if the opponent lies it's bad but if you do, it's not. Or you can do a Harry Reid and pull an "is it or isn't it a lie" type lie.  RNC Chairman Rence Priebus called Reid a "dirty liar" for unsubstantiated charges that Romney has not paid taxes for ten years, but as long as Reid's accusation remains unrefuted nobody knows if Reid is lying or not. It's kind of a "gotcha" lie. Telling lies is not illegal otherwise most of our politicians would be in jail. If a politician is caught in a whopper he or she just has staff insist it was taken out of context or misinterpreted.  One of my all-time favorites is when Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) said 90 percent of what Planned Parenthood did involved abortion.  When this lie was challenged his staff said "it was not intended to be a factual statement."   Politicians spout off about our wonderful, noble “American values," and our wholesome “family values."  Evidently telling the truth is no longer one of them.

Sideblog:  It's "thoughts and prayers" time again.  A guy walks into a Sikh Church in Wisconsin kills six people and wounds three and our politicians, from presidential candidates on down, ring their hands, shake their heads sadly and declare what a tragedy this is for all America and how the victims have our "thoughts and prayers." NRA six more points, American People zero.  NRA wins again.