Strauss 102

Nixon lied. Reagan lied. Clinton lied. 42 Presidents and 42 adminstrations have lied before W. The difference is that there used to be a consensus that a lie marked some disconnect with the truth. No longer--this is truly the Age of Nonsense.

This is the triumph of Straussianism: there is no lie too outrageous to tell and there is no need to tell the same lie consistently.

It is this latter that is so devastatingly effective. If one tells the same lie over and over, one has committed oneself to a position that can be proven false. The fluidity and inconsistency of the Bush administration's lies is what allows them to get away with it all. They are never locked into a single position.

The truth seems diminished and insignificant next to the breathtaking range of positions the administration takes. The truth is inflexible, singular, and boring. It just can't compete with the carnivaleque multiplicity of the tales woven in the White House.

This offers the ultimate protection from disclosure. Disclosure only enhances the sense of giddy instability, of narrative proliferation, of the carnival.

The result is not that the liars look like liars, but that the truth looks puny and contemptible.