The dreaded "L" word

Someone finally said it. Someone in the news media...on air, and for the record.

Yes, it's the dreaded "L" word...and perhaps not the one you think. Not liberal, not lesbian. LIE. LIAR.

"We are surrounded by people who lie to us," said Daniel Schorr, NPR senior news analyst, in his Week in Review on NPR this morning.

And then he pointed to President Bush, who keeps saying that Americans don't torture people, even as his recently revealed memos make it clear that we do...to Blackwater, whose representatives keep saying they don't kill Iraqi civilians, even as recent news reports and congressional reports make it clear that they do...and to Olympic gold-medal winner Marion Jones who recently confessed that she lied when she insisted -- repeatedly and publicly -- that she had not used steroids to win.

After years of beating around the bush, it's about time people in the media started telling it to us straight, instead of using "give-'em-a-pass" euphemisms like "misspoke." After all, a lie is a lie is a lie. And those who tell them are liars. Even when that person happens to be the president.