As is well known, members of Parliaments with rules derived from those of the mother of Parliaments are forbidden from using the word “liar” or “lie” to refer to other members or their remarks. You can see why this rule is a necessary one. The charge that someone is lacking in good faith poisons the wells of debate in a system that is founded on debate. It invites a retort in kind which at once drains the system of substance and renders the parliamentary process trivial. The deliberations of our own dear legislature have been trivialized and drained of substance for other reasons, however, which unhappy fact throws most if not all of our substantive political debate into the press—where charges of lying made by political adversaries against each other now seem to have become almost routine.

Of course, it is easy to lose one’s head in the heat of political strife, but what are we to think of those who, with every opp ...

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