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
opportunity for reflection and the moderation of passion, accuse
their political opponents of lying in cold print—which affords
slanderers and calumniators a certain amount of protection? But
then, the words “lying,” “lie,” and “liar” nowadays hardly seem to
carry the kick they did in the days when violence was likely to
accompany their deployment. This must partly be a result of
the crudeness and vulgarity of the media culture that I discussed
in this space last month. Every time someone—like, say, Gary
Condit—is unresponsive to