Open Truth

What do these three questions have in common?

Have you stopped beating your wife?
Has your husband stopped sleeping around?
Have you stopped taking PAC money?

Each is a linguistic trap.

Responder: "Yes, I have stopped beating my wife."
Interrogator: "Then you freely admit that you have beat your wife."

Responder: "Yes, my husband has stopped sleeping around."
Interrogator: "Sigh"

Responder: "Yes, I have stopped taking PAC money."
Interrogator: "Sigh"

Each is designed to elicit a truthful response and at the same time condemn the responder. The particular 'feature' of these questions is that we as a culture use them to condemn the responder regardless of the truth of their answer.

Michelle Obama has had the unfortunate "American Political Experience" of having told the truth. She told the American public "... recently that she's really proud of her country for the first time in her adult life." (AP) Within seconds of that utterance political adversaries and pundits speculated that Michelle had not been proud of her country. (They even went to sanctimonious ends to suggest that they have always been proud of their country.)

Let me state this as clearly as I possibly can.

On occasions too numerous to mention I have not been proud of my country.
- William B. Meloney VII

Michelle Obama has fearlessly told the truth and we as an "A.P.E." culture have tried to bludgeon her with it. Shame on us!

Michelle Obama should be revered for stating clearly that 'the emperor is naked!' For the first time in many of our adult lives we truly have something of which we can be proud. For the first time in my adult life I am not subject to "politics as usual." In this political race there is a possibility that the election will not be stolen from the candidate with the populous mandate. For the first time in my adult life I feel that personal views are not only being heard but honored.