Beyond meaning and misspoking and unknown unknown
When it comes to duplicity, our politicians have learnt much from their US cousins.
Bill Clinton told a global television audience 'I did not have sexual relations with that women', responding to allegations from White House intern, Monica Lewinsky in 1998. Even when he was forced to come clean, he still wouldn't acknowledge that he had sex with Lewinsky, instead he called it an "inappropriate relationship", he said "...it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible."
He also said, "I never told any body to lie, not a single time, never." Clearly, he reserved that right to himself. At the time of this event, Clinton made much of what he understood by the term 'sexual relations', throughout the whole inquisition he sought to redefine the term, such that the word sexual had no sexual connotations. It was as if he and Monica just held hands, in Bill's mind anyway but he nearly managed to persuade the American nation as well. And as ever, the US model of political depravity leeched across the globe, stare straight at the camera, head up, deny all knowledge with total sincerity and when you get caught out, prostrate yourself to the court of human frailty.
Hillary Misspoke
Bill's wife, Hillary, to cover up her own lying, invented the word 'misspoke'. Saying I lied is harsh, saying I misspoke has connotations of acceptable error. Obviously, this was all too late to save Bill's career but she salvaged her own with it.
Talking about her visit to Bosnia in 1996, Hillary said:
“I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”
Unfortunately for liar Hillary, CBS News showed footage of her walking calmly across the tarmac with her daughter, Chelsea, and being greeted by dignitaries and a child with flowers. In her memoir, “Living History,” she wrote about sniper fire in the hills but it didn't trouble her hand shaking activities.