I used to say when Stanley Marsh 3 — Amarillo’s most notable weirdo — was alive that there wasn’t a single thing I could disbelieve about him. He seemed capable of pulling off damn near any stunt imaginable.
That said, there is not a single thing I can believe coming out of Donald J. Trump’s mouth. Nothing he says — not a damn thing — is to be taken at face value.
“Do you love your wife, Mr. President?” He would say “yes,” but do I actually believe him? Not for a second! Or an instant!
Jonathan Karl of ABC News asked the president about his truth-telling. The president said “I do try” to tell the truth, but added that sometimes “I can’t.” He offered some goofy explanation about how things change: “I always want to tell the truth. When I can, I tell the truth. And sometimes it turns out to be to be where something happens that’s different or there’s a change, but I always like to be truthful.”
Is he saying that circumstances change as he’s talking about them? Does he suggest that when he starts providing an answer that matters change that turn a truthful answer into a lie?
How does this guy get away with it?
Donald Trump has turned lying into something of a political art form. His critics — such as me — no longer believe anything that comes out of his mouth. His supporters — such as some readers of this blog — give him a pass.
These Trumpsters, many of whom I count as friends of mine, demand the truth from people such as me when commenting on the president, but make no such demand of the guy who lies gratuitously, without any discernable need. When given an opportunity to remain silent on an issue, he chooses to lie.
He boasts about the “huge” victory he scored in 2016. He brags about the record size of his inauguration crowd. Trump blasts past president for playing too much golf, says he won’t have time for it, then plays more golf than any of them. He says America is the only nation on Earth that grants citizenship to people born here, but that’s not true, either.
His fans don’t mind the lies.
What in the world … ?