Truth: The enemy of the state

“The truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister, knew the dangers of a free press which truth-checks government pronouncements. Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday certainly protected the State. His statement contained a litany of errors.

In words that President Trump would approve, Spicer claimed that, “This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration — period — both in person and around the globe.” No matter which metric you use this is untrue. In fact, Trump drew a crowd less than half of Obama’s 2009 inaugural attendance (http://time.com/4641381/donald-trump-inauguation-crowd). The same source also notes that more people were at Obama’s 2013 inauguration.

Another lie that Spicer told related to attendance was that, “We know that 420,000 people used the D.C. Metro public transit yesterday, which actually compares to 317,000 that used it for President Obama’s last inaugural.” The 317,000 rider total for 2013 is for before 11 a.m. By comparison Trump, at the same time cut off, only drew 197,000 people — less than half what Spicer claimed. For the full day, President Obama’s inaugurals drew in 2013, 782,000 rides; and in 2009, 1.1 million; compared to President Trump’s 570,557 trips (http://bit.ly/2jNlSQm).

Once more, he made a false claim. He asserted that this was the first time floor coverings had been used to protect the grass on the National Mall and that this had made the crowds seem smaller. Another statement, another lie, in fact 2013 was the first time the coverings had been used. There is a picture in Getty Images of workers, in 2013, installing the protection (http://gtty.im/2jNmiX1).

He made two other erroneous statements. In short, inside of a five minute briefing he lied five times (http://politi.co/2klxxGD). That’s bad when the first press briefing of an administration starts with an intense burst of falsehood. Then he stormed off the stage without taking questions. Perhaps, he knew that the press corps would dissect his lies and he would be left shamefacedly having to spend the next five minutes retracting everything he had just said.

However, a worse motif emerged. Kellyanne Conway when asked about his false claims said, “You’re saying it was a falsehood and Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that.” There is just one problem to her statement. There is no such thing as an “alternative fact.” Either a thing is true, which makes it a fact, or a thing is untrue; which makes it a fiction, to put it politely — an outright lie to be blunt.

She made it even more sinister. She continued, “If we’re going to keep referring to the press secretary in those types of terms we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here.”

The First Amendment guarantees the rights of a free press. If a government tries to abridge those freedoms, perhaps by “rethinking its relationship,” when a reporter proves that the press secretary to the president lied to inflate the popularity of his superior then that government is attempting to annul the Constitution.

That the presidency is committed to a program of lies is obvious from Mr. Spicer’s attempt at a press conference Monday. The Guardian newspaper describes him as lapsing into self-pity. It quotes him as saying, “I think sometimes we can disagree from the facts.” Pardon me, but I seem to remember some controversy about Hillary Clinton claiming the attack on the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi was provoked by a video. Apparently, we have Democratic rules and Republican rules.

We have a government committed to carrying whatever President Trump believes to be true, even if that doesn’t correspond to reality.

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Jeff Bourget is a resident of Coeur d'Alene.