Palin & Her Lies.....Another View

Paul Rosenberg posts on Open Left a wonderful screed about Palin and her lies:

It was a slow newsday, Friday before a holiday, so why shouldn't Sarah Palin suck up all the oxygen in five continents? If only that stupid Michael Jackson fellah hadn't died the week before, she could have totally pulled it off. As it was, she did pretty damn well for a couple of hours there. Her big secret? Same as it ever was: she lied. Seven ways from Sunday. She lied about being cleared in all the Alaska investigations; she lied about their cost; she lied about wanting to serve the people of Alaska; she lied about fulfilling her goals; she lied about people attacking her son Trig; she lied about being like a point guard; she lied when she said "and" and "the". She spoke, therefore she lied.

Why does Sarah Palin lie? She lies to get out of trouble; she lies to shift blame; she lies to get even; she lies to get ahead; she lies to hurt her enemies; she lies to amuse her friends; she lies to relieve boredom; she lies to have some fun; she lies because truth is bother; she lies as a key to strategy; she lies because she has no plan; she lies to confuse anyone trying to keep track; she lies to make sense to those not keeping track; she lies for power; she lies because lying works for her; she lies just for the hell of it; she lies because she can; she lies because that's how she expresses her freedom--a very libertarian idea of freedom, I might well add.

Liberals and libertarians are both about freedom, but their concepts of freedom are radically different, and Sarah Palin's compulsive, multipurpose lying is as a good a way as any to approach understanding the differences between them.

In sharp contrast, liberals characteristically express their freedom by telling the truth, inconvenient truths, as Al Gore put it. Truths about racism and war, such as Martin Luther King told, when speaking truth to power. Truths about the social order and tradition that are not supposed to be said.