Believe

Every year Politifact.com awards one unlucky schmuck the not-so-prestigious Lie of the Year Award. This year’s recipient was our very own commander in chief Barack Obama. Now as far as I’m concerned politicians should just be exempt from this whole thing because every last one of them lies or at the very least stretches the truth further than Octomom’s waistline when she’s carrying a litter of 8.

Suffice to say, every year that they’ve been presenting this award it’s gone to a politician. It really is an unfair advantage, especially in regard to those of us busting our butts everyday to come up with the ultimate Teflon lie.

At any rate, the lie that nominated and ultimately awarded Mr. Obama was his repeated statement in regard to people’s insurance coverage and his Affordable Care Act. Specifically this one line; “If you’re happy with your health care plan, you can keep it.”

The catch is, under the ACA’s new guidelines, a lot of people’s (4 million to be exact) health plans didn’t qualify, thus they were canceled and Obama was by default, a liar.

Let’s keep in mind that even though 4 million seems like a lot, it only accounted for around 2% of the insured population. That’s not to say that there weren’t a lot of folks who were royally pissed upon finding out that their plans had been canceled. But in retrospect, the new plans they’d received were more comprehensive and after subsidies and credits were applied the cost was just a little higher than their original plans but covered them a lot more.

None of this really matters though in the age of the repetitive sound bite.  Conservatives have been screaming at the top of their self-righteous lungs about this and absolutely no one is surprised. As irony would have it, the 3 runners up this year were Ted Cruz, Ann Coulter & Michele Bachmann, all for their lies about the ACA.

Regardless of that though Fox News is gonna be all over this Lie of the Year Award quicker than Rush Limbaugh is at an all you can eat buffet on dollar night with complimentary pain killers, no limit.

But do any of us really care what Fox News has to say? Because anybody with a 5^th grader’s wisdom knows that Fox News is on par with any given trashy reality TV show. It’s lowest common denominator entertainment.

ANYWAY-

Truth be told, Obama wasn’t forthcoming with all the information he was privy to. But who the hell is completely honest when talking about a sensitive subject? Men and women of all creeds, social and financial backgrounds know when to say just enough but not divulge the entire truth lest they want their asses handed to them.

In the Babylonian Talmud, there's a story about a town named “Kushtah” (which means 'truth' in Aramaic.) Basically, the point of the story is that there is no such thing as 100% truth–there are times, specifically when trying to keep the peace, pursuing a mitzvah, or just trying to maintain some modesty and kindness, that people bend the truth to avoid an all-out war. See? Even God understands that sometimes it's best to skirt the issue delicately.

Here’s a very relatable example: “Honey, does this dress make me look fat?”

Now if it does and you know it and you say it, the only thing that will come of it is a fat lip. So the correct response is: “Baby, if you’re happy with that dress, you can keep it.”

In retrospect, we could all learn a thing or two from our President and his award.