Liberal ‘lies’ about President Trump – The Hill (blog)

Liberals have discovered a new word.

Lie: to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive.

MSNBC's Lawrence ODonnell went so far as to crown himself the enemy of Trump lies. Interestingly, the concept of lying has been noticeably absent from liberal vocabulary for the last eight years.

This characterization was nowhere to be found when President Barack ObamaBarack ObamaMellman: Rating the presidents Webb: The future of conservatism Moulitsas: Trumps warped sense of reality MOREs then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice appeared on five Sunday talk shows and blamed the Benghazi attacks on a YouTube video. In lockstep, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton allegedly assured the families of the four dead Americans that she would get the videomaker; this promise came despite Clinton knowing full well that terrorists were to blame.

Indeed, Clinton wrote in two emails in the immediate aftermath of Benghazi that these Americans were killed in Benghazi by an al Qaeda-like group not at the hands of a spontaneous protest triggered by a video. Nevertheless, she purportedly deceived the families of these American heroes.

The L-word was absent when the Obama administration promised 37 times if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it, only to be followed by millions of Americans losing their plans and doctors en masse. According to NBC, the Obama administration knew millions could not keep their health insurance. Liberals, nevertheless, played the naivet card.

Lying allegations were nonexistent when Hillary Clinton vowed that she did not email any classified material to anyone on my email only to be followed by a revised vow that she never sent nor received any information that was classified at the time it was sent and received before finally arriving at the promise that she never received nor sent any material that was marked classified.

Is your head spinning? Mine too! Clintons evolving and lawyerly defenses of course came as the evidence of her sending and receiving classified information became public. As the facts grew, so too did evidence of Clintons intentional deception.

Rather than label the Obama and Clinton duplicities as lies, liberals rationalized them. Obama and Clinton did not intend to deceive, and thus they did not lie.

Rice and Clinton were caught up in the fog of war during Benghazi, as Clinton stated to a congressional panel. Obama did not realize millions would lose their plans. And Clinton, despite having three decades of government experience, just did not know how to handle classified information.

In other words, because these liberals did not intend to deceive a questionable notion at best, given the facts they did not lie.

If the left would use this same exacting precision in analyzing the words of President Trump, not only would they find that Trump is not lying but that he lacks the nefarious cover-up motives involved in several of the aforementioned Democratic mistruths.

For instance, I was at Trumps Saturday rally in Melbourne, Fla., where he urged his audience to look at whats happening last night in Sweden.

The left used Trumps vague statement to impart sinister suspicion. How dare he make up a terrorist attack!? and liar! were but a few of the apoplectic freak-outs. Meanwhile, the person beside me heard it entirely differently. Hes referring to information he gathered regarding Sweden last night, this person said.

Trumps clarification on Twitter that his last night remark indeed referred to a Friday night Fox News segment on crime in Switzerland validated the latter interpretation over the former. Nevertheless, the former interpretation was adopted as gospel.

The lefts lying narrative was again on full display when Trump stated that the murder rate was the highest it has been in 47 years. The liberals accused Trump of intentionally planting a false statistic, but they ought to have done a cursory Google search, which would have clarified exactly what Trump was getting at: the U.S. had just seen the biggest increase in murders in 45 years.

Trump used this statistic several times throughout the campaign, and Politifact rated his statement as mostly true. But this time Trump left out one word increase and the left lost it, resorting to the lying label.

The truth is liberals are using every tactic possible to drown the Trump presidency. False allegations of racism, bigotry, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and now lying each have their own chapter in the Trump takedown playbook.

As it turns out, the only lies being told are not by President Donald TrumpDonald TrumpWH adviser Stephen Miller: 'Nothing wrong' with Trump travel order Mellman: Rating the presidents Webb: The future of conservatism MORE but by liberals, who will hypocritically mischaracterize Trumps every action. They do so intentionally the very definition of a lie.

Kayleigh McEnany is a CNN political commentator who recently received her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. She graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and also studied politics at Oxford University.

The views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.