Truth is not what it used to be. In days past, telling the truth meant to represent the facts accurately. It was presupposed that truth corresponded to a reality to be known, and that not telling the truth was morally wrong. To tell a lie, then, was a mis-representation of a given matter. When former President Bill Clinton claimed, “There is no relationship,” in reference to his adulterous affair with a White House intern, was he telling the truth? The well-known response, of course, is that it depends on what the definition of “is” is, as well as on Mr. Clinton’s definition of “relationship.” Our world has gotten accustomed to Orwellian doublespeak, and with moral absolutes largely considered a thing of the past, language has become a pliable tool in the hands of ideologues.
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