Let's not be naïve. Presidents, like diplomats, at times go forth and lie for their country. But when they use lies, repeated over and over, to deceive their own people, democracy is at risk.

America recently went through a week of celebration of the life of Ronald Reagan--a celebration that itself was a kind of lie, since it left out any mention of Reagan's own lies during the Iran/contra crisis, which was a grave assault on the Constitution.

Now another ex-President, Bill Clinton, is back in the limelight flogging his bestselling book. Like Reagan, Clinton also misled the nation. But he was lying not on matters of war and peace, or subverting the Constitution, but about a private sexual affair--after being pursued by fanatical right-wing Republicans led by Kenneth Starr. (We don't condone Clinton's lies, but we found much more troubling his inaction on Rwanda, his unwillingness to stem increases in corporate power over the public sphere and his signature on the punitive GOP welfare "reform" bill.)

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