" . . .maybe recent data just show that today's disgust with Washington (the town, not the man) is starting to affect the reputation of earlier giants. Either way, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll found that 74% of voters think the father of our country lied while in office."As I have been editing these anthologies it has reinforced a belief that the stories we tell -- to ourselves, to each other, to school children -- are as much about the world as we want it to be as they are about the world as it is. The story about George Washington and the cherry tree ("I cannot tell a lie, father -- I cut it down with my little hatchet") was invented by Parson (Mason Locke) Weems out of whole cloth but it illustrated something that we wanted and that we needed to believe: that our founders, that our leaders were incorruptible. So what does it mean when we no longer believe that story?
Perhaps it signifies that we no longer believe honesty is important, or that it is unattainable. Perhaps it means that we believe that power inevitably corrupts and we are naive to think otherwise. It could also be that we want to have leaders with feet of clay to justify our own shortcomings: even Honest Abe told a whopper on occasion, right? The key is that this poll doesn't reflect a change in attitudes towards Washington and Lincoln: it represents a change in our attitudes about truth.
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