Since the president is such a great fan of exactitude in the use of words, as he has demonstrated lately, let’s take a little journey utilizing the dictionary as our road map to discover where the president’s assertion, that he did, in fact, mislead his family and the American people, takes us. Is this, in itself, an admission of perjury? Let’s find out.
According to the dictionary, mislead means “to guide in the wrong direction; deceive; trick; delude; betray; commit treason against or be a traitor to; faithless; disloyal; unworthy of trust; traitorous; constituting treason; any betrayal of trust or confidence; treachery; willful betrayal of fidelity, confidence or trust; treason.”
It appears, based on our own unbiased, nonpartisan dictionary, that to mislead can ultimately be considered a treasonous act. But is it perjury? Perjury is defined as “the deliberate, willful giving of false, misleading or incomplete evidence or testimony by a witness under oath in a judicial proceeding. . . .” There you have it, the trail of the president’s word. What do you think?
If we follow the polls, it seems the majority of Americans don’t care one way or the other. I wonder if this sense of apathy has contributed to our justice system and truth continuing to go their separate ways, while we dismiss the inclination of our tortured victim/hero president who still isn’t big enough to simply speak the plain, simple truth without dissembling, equivocating or manipulating. So here we are. He lies, we lie. We’re all asleep in the same bed of deceit. But when do we wake up? When do we understand that our word, whatever the context, does matter; that invariably it affects the whole. And when do we demand more, not only from President Clinton, but from each one of us as well, to nurture this fledgling country of ours into integrity and spiritual well-being.
Diane Miller