Political Quotes

“The American public does not like being lied to by its government. Of course we don't but particularly on matters of war. I am old enough to remember two tragic circumstances where the American public was lied to by their civilian leadership about war-- many lies were told by successive administrations, beginning with the Eisenhower administration and through Kennedy and Johnson in particular, about the Vietnam war--and how tragic it was when Americans realized that much of what they had been told that led, first, the United States to take over the French colonial project in Southeast Asia and then to engage in war--much of what they had been told was false. When you are losing your sons and daughters--56,000 U.S. deaths in the Vietnam war--and then you find that the civilian leadership has been lying to you while troops have been serving honorably, it is incredibly embittering in a State like Virginia where there are so many military equities but to every State. We were lied to about the war in Iraq.”