Always someone left to lie to

January 24, 2022 By Thomas Buckley

The late lamented Christopher Hitchens wrote a book about Bill (and to a lesser extent Hillary) Clinton entitled No One Left to Lie To.  While Hitchens was a brilliant polemicist whose notorious wit could turn instantaneously from sledgehammer to scalpel and back again, he was not, it appears, a terribly good prognosticator.  There are still people left to lie to, and, sadly, there always will be.

Imagine, if you will, the parable of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" updated for today.  Instead of the boy's lie being confined to one small village, it would — through social media, etc. — be out there for the whole world to hear and not necessarily at the same time.  Like a good marketing campaign, the boy could make sure to target certain audiences at certain times, thereby potentially perpetuating the lie for eons.  "It takes two to lie -- one to lie and one to listen." More