To a large extent the multiple crises engulfing the Obama administration are economic and informational — it’s a rebellion against the cost of lying. The sheer mendacity of key institutions has jacked up the risk premium on everything, and people instinctively know this.
A friend asked whether “the IRS scandal makes it necessary to consider the call not to pay taxes, or not to file returns, or participate in the all-cash economy. People are thinking these things.” Of course they would be thinking of those things. It would be unnatural if they didn’t.
If you destroy trust in the institutions, then people do business outside the institutions.
The president has made it hard to do business — even for the Left. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated than in the administration’s decision to spy on the Associated Press. That essentially cheapened the meaning of “political friend.” For if the administration could do that to its water-carriers, then what was the point of being his friend? Liberals, like anyone else, feel the pain of being stabbed in the back. It has the same effect as Obama’s assurance to allies than Iran will never get the bomb. Right, sure. Of course.
The emotional impact of Benghazi was probably this: if he could do this to Stevens and to SEALs, then he could do it to anybody.
A lying president debases his own words and undermines his own ability to hold a coalition together. Nobody completely trusts reassurances from a double-crosser. Only a fool would accept a kiss from Judas. The day comes when not even the liberals can fail to notice.
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