Take Me To Post Comment Form Remember the famous line in the climactic scenes of the move "A Few Good Men"?

Jack Nicholson's character announces to the court that "you can't handle the truth".

I'm not sure that really applies in this example. In order to handle the truth, you first have to demonstrate some rudimentary interest in it.

It is certainly true that leaders at Mr. Blunt's level are likely deluged with all kinds of information, and some of that information may be incorrect. President Obama recently announced that the AARP endorsed his health care proposals. That turned out to be incorrect.

In situations like these, it is up to us as informed citizens to determine as best we can, who made an honest mistake and who is deliberately lying to us.

The problem is that too often, we make that decision based solely on whether or not we agree with that politician's views.

I am willing to give Mr. Blunt the benefit of the doubt and conclude he made an honest mistake. If nothing else, I think we are well-served to avoid whenever possible the partisan demonization that constitutes so much of political discourse in this country.

And call me cynical, but I will not hold my breath waiting for the President's critics to extend the same courtesy.

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform/published-editorials/2009/08/truth-and-not-quite-truth-in-the-health-reform-debate/

As chairman of the House Republican Health Care Solutions Group, Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Springfield, knows a thing or two about health care. But some of what he knows just isn’t true.
“I’m 59,” Mr. Blunt said last week during a meeting with Post-Dispatch reporters and editors. “In either Canada or Great Britain, if I broke my hip, I couldn’t get it replaced.”
We fact-checked that. At least 63 percent of hip replacements performed in Canada last year and two-thirds of those done in England were on patients age 65 or older. More than 1,200 in Canada were done on people older than 85.