I was never a fan of Barney Frank, the retired, long-serving Massachusetts Democrat. Not because I didn’t find him particularly honest – I did – but because I vehemently disagreed with what he supported. Weirdly, however, I never really disliked him. I thought he was crazy and Left-Wing and wrong on everything, but I never got the sense that he was deliberately lying. As he enters hospice care at the end of his life, the Democratic Party he used to be a leader in has turned on him because he, rightly, is pointing out how insane they have become.

When I say I never got the idea that Barney was deliberately lying, it’s important to point out what that means. There is a difference between being wrong and lying, and it’s important we don’t lose sight of that. Anyone can be wrong; people are wrong all the time. Lying comes into play when you know you’re wrong and you insist you are not.

Asked if it is raining and you say it is not without looking because it wasn’t the last time you saw out a window, even though it is currently raining, you are wrong, not lying. Watching the drops fall and answering it is not a lie. In politics, people are wrong all the time, so much so that you have to wonder........

© Townhall