What, is today Monday? The sun came up? The chickens are crowing? A Democrat shamelessly lied to deceive the American people?

On the first day of summer of 2023, Adam Schiff, a Democratic congressman from Pasadena, was censured by the House of Representatives in view of his “falsehoods, misinterpretations and abuses of sensitive information” during the course of the “Russia-gate” investigation. After the vote to censure, which Democratic representatives unanimously opposed, chants of “Shame! Shame! Shame!” were heard from the left side of the aisle.

Or were they shouting “Same! Same! Same!”? 

Shameless and Patently Absurd Falsehoods

It does seem unfair that Schiff should be singled out for being careless with facts, in a political party and media culture that have made shameless and patently absurd falsehoods a favored means of emitting carbon dioxide from their lungs.  

“Er-er-er er-er!” Says the rooster, greeting the rising sun. 

“Laws against abortion are unconstitutional!” Say the Left, in chorus. 

“The border is secure!”

“The police are racist!”

“Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop is Russian disinformation!”   

“Mostly-peaceful protests!” 

“Fiscally responsible!”  

“Lowest inflation of any country!”  

“Ron DeSantis passed a ‘Don’t say gay bill!’” (Remember, the legislation never uses the word “gay.” It forbids teachers from talking about sensitive sexual topics with 3rd-graders!) 

“Summer of love!” (Says Jenny Durkan, as mobs set up barricades, ban white people from a basketball court on a hill over downtown Seattle, and spray-paint “Kill the Cops!” on walls.) 

“Just say the word, and you will become a real boy!”

“‘Lia’ Thomas is one of America’s leading female swimmers!” 

“This 260-pound fellow watching girls undress is actually a chick, and any young woman who feels discomfort being observed by a heterosexual male in the privacy of her sorority rooms is a bigot!”

“In Adam, We Have All Sinned”

“Shame,” “same,” what’s the difference? Maybe I’ve spent too much time in East Asia. Neither Japanese nor Chinese differentiate between “s” and “sh” sounds quite the same as English-speakers do. The Japanese “s” and the Chinese sound spelled “x” (as in Xi Jinping) sound somewhere between “s” and “sh.” 

Or perhaps the House Democratic Caucus meant to express identity with Adam Schiff, in his attempt to impeach the former president by means of what has been exposed as a patent, shameless hoax. 

“Same! Same! Same!”

In other words, “We lie just as fluently and flagrantly as our colleague!” 

Then they chanted “Adam! Adam! Adam!” As if to paraphrase St. Paul: “In Adam, we have all sinned.”

A Tangled Skein of Falsehoods 

Like the roots of a noxious weed, this tangled skein of falsehoods shares an organic connection with the orthodoxy of the Left. Political scientist Jay Budziszewski explained it in his book What We Can’t Not Know. Sexual revolutionaries first lied by calling lust, “love,” as in “Make love, not war.” (Even the Manson family spoke much of “love,” when not stabbing people.) Then, when “free love” turned into costly pregnancies, “lovers” gave truth another twist, to justify killing “mere products of conception.” The Supreme Court then falsified America’s most fundamental law, the U.S. Constitution, to make abortion a “universal right,” which the people could not infringe.     

Guilt confronted with truth often leads to anger. It drives the liar into telling ever more flamboyant falsehoods, to cover over his guilty conscience. G.K. Chesterton presciently explained the “progress” of the Sexual Revolution from “free love” into its present form in which state legislatures like my own are opening the door to child mutilation even without parental consent:

Men seek stranger sins and more startling obscenities as stimulants to their jaded sense . . . they try to stab their nerves to life, if it were with the knives of the priests of Baal.

That’s Dr. Baal, MD to you!

True, many Republican politicians and reporters also twist the truth, or blindly believe what they wish, or lie outright when it suits their purposes. That is one reason I am hoping for a new candidate to represent my party in 2024. We need someone with integrity, to oppose the vast network of falsehoods into which the Democratic Platform has evolved, and to elevate the moral temper of our country. America needs an honest leader, if nothing else, so that our children will grow up believing that a man or woman should speak the truth.     

Adam Schiff spoke lies? More of the “same, same, same.” For once, the Democratic Caucus told the truth, if one listens to their chant with a lisp.

David Marshall, an educator and writer, has a doctoral degree in Christian thought and Chinese tradition. His most recent book is The Case for Aslan: Evidence for Jesus in the Land of Narnia.