White House lies come in many flavors. There is an outright lie, like this one (April 25, 2011): “It is certainly not the policy of the coalition, of this administration, to decapitate, or to effect regime change in Libya by force.” Uh-huh. It’s not our policy, but we are doing what we can do make it happen, and if it happens, we’re happy it did. Ms. Clinton punctuated that one on Oct. 20, 2011, adding “We came. We saw. He died.”

There is the half-truth or half-lie, like this: “Beyond Afghanistan, we must define our effort not as a boundless ‘global war on terror’ — but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America.” The GWOT goes away by being redefined. It’s replaced by a series of persistent targeted efforts. However, these are operating more globally than ever, being in more countries than ever.

Then there is this type: “There is no spying on Americans, we don’t have a domestic spying program. What we do have are some mechanisms where we can track a phone number or an email address that we know is connected to some sort of terrorist threat.” Spying involves collecting information secretly, which is exactly what the NSA is doing in bulk. This lie is like the GWOT lie where war became “persistent targeted efforts.” Here, spying becomes mechanisms of tracking. “Kidnapping” becomes “rendition”. Lying to Congress becomes the “least untruthful response.” The CIA simply clams up, refusing even to acknowledge targeted drone killings. Torture becomes “enhanced interrogation.” We don’t torture anyone. We use enhanced interrogation. Uh-huh.

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