The truth should matter.
Especially to our president. Especially from our president.
But it clearly doesn't.
Even before Donald Trump called a Democratic congresswoman's comments that he disrespected a fallen Green Beret "fabricated" and said he had "proof," Trump had demonstrably and publicly lied five times in about two weeks.
"Other presidents did not call. They'd write letters. And some presidents didn't do anything," Trump said of past presidents' responses to soldier deaths.
That was a lie, too. And never mind that Trump had made no mention, no tweet, no call, no anything about the four dead Green Berets for 12 days.
(Just for the record, when the Green Beret's mother, who also heard the call, backed up the congresswoman, the Trump White House did not confirm or deny what the congresswoman and the mother said about the conversation. "The President's conversations with the families of American heroes who have made the ultimate sacrifice are private," a White House official said in a statement.)
Before those whoppers, there were these - all just this month:
-"We are the highest-taxed nation in the world."
No. The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development in 2014 compared the United States with 33 other industrialized nations and found that we actually fell to the bottom or the middle of the pack. Even if Trump would amend this to the U.S. corporate tax rate, his oft-repeated assertion would only be partly truthful: America has the highest statutory rate among developed countries, but once U.S. corporations invoke loopholes, deductions and other exclusions, we're down the list again.
-"The Obama administration "borrowed more than $10 trillion, right? And yet, we picked up $5.2 trillion just in the stock market. Maybe in a sense we're reducing debt."
This from a so-called successful billionaire businessman? One would assume he knows that the debt and the stock market are two completely different and separate things, so why would he deliberately try to mislead the public watching his interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News?
-"Bob Corker gave us the Iran deal," Trump tweeted, hours after Corker tweeted that the White House "has become an adult day care center." Trump also falsely claimed Corker "begged" for the president's re-election endorsement and Trump said no. It actually was the other around.
As for Iran, publicly in 2015 Corker said Congress should reject the deal and send it back to the president. Corker also voted against the deal. Republicans ultimately lacked the votes to reject it. Months before, Corker sponsored the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act that enhanced Congress' authority to review any nuclear agreement with Iran before allowing a president to lift congressionally-imposed sanctions. That bill had passed, giving Congress a say in the matter. In reality, Corker very nearly prevented the deal's implementation.
Donald Trump's PolitiFact scorecard for some 460 Trump claims tallies like this: Only 5 percent were true, 12 percent were mostly true, 15 percent were half true, 21 percent were mostly false, 33 percent were false and 15 percent were labeled "Pants on Fire."
The overall findings show nearly 70 percent of his statements are at some level of false and about 32 percent are at some level of true.
The truth should matter.
Aside from Americans' great and growing depression over having a truth-challenged leader, look at what we're always talking about - here he goes again.
We are facing a future fraught with the uncertainties of climate change, Russian election meddling and the constant ratcheting up of another stupid war. ("Stupid" is what Trump used to call wars, back before he had the nuclear codes and an equally narcissistic and psychotic new playmate to bully named Kim Jong-un.)
But our president isn't talking up any policies or plans to keep the world from overheating or to keep the Russians out of our voting booths or to distract the North Korean supreme leader with new toys. And neither are we.
Why? Because Trump can't stop lying. And of course one lie leads to another and another and another as he gets more and more tangled in fact checks and counter claims.
All of last week was consumed with Trump's growing fabrications to cover up his offhand ad libs when a reporter asked if he had anything to say 12 days after four Green Berets died in an ambush in Niger. Trump could have just said they served our country bravely and offered their families his public condolences. But no. "Because our president is 'Showman' Trump, the issue quickly turned political," in the words of "RedState."
The conservative news website continues: "People, this shouldn't be hard. When an American soldier dies overseas, the president of the United States, whoever he is, should always offer condolences, and never, ever invoke politics. Ever. By claiming that Obama and other past presidents did not call the families of fallen soldiers, Trump made an outright mockery of the deaths of these men."
This is the same president - the one who evaded military service in Vietnam with recurrent bone spurs - who has ranted off and on for weeks that NFL players are disrespecting the military and our flag because they are kneeling during the national anthem.
But for 12 days he made not a mention, not a tweet, not a card, not a letter, not a call, nothing about four Green Berets killed in an ISIS-linked extremist ambush in Africa.
Trump is the one who is really disrespecting our military. And now he lies about it. Again and again.
And all we can talk about is his newest lie.
It's time to stop talking and start demanding that he be removed from office so our country can begin to heal and concentrate again - for real, finally - on things that will make this nation and the world a better place.
The truth does matter.