When witnesses are called to testify in court, they swear to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” At first blush it seems almost redundant, but its meaning is not lost on trial lawyers, their clients, the judge and the jury. And it shouldn’t be lost on anyone who regularly listens to, or deals with, many of the politicians and government bureaucrats who have mastered the principles of misinformation and obfuscation.
For most people, “the truth” is pretty easy to understand. It is correct information. When you tell “the truth,” old is not new; black is not white; and Bill Clinton really did have sexual relations with that woman.
The “whole truth,” however, is a different matter. It means that none of “the truth” that is relevant to the matter at hand is omitted. The reason for that part of the oath is embodied in the Ben Franklin quote: “Half a truth is often a great lie.” For example, when one of our local governmental bodies reports that it will pay for a $20 Million project by issuing $20 Million of bonds, that may be “the truth” but it certainly isn’t the “whole truth” – because it fails to elucidate that those bonds will actually drive up the cost of the project by many more millions of dollars when the years of interest and fees are figured in.
Even more difficult for people to comprehend is the “nothing but the truth” part of the oath. That’s meant to eliminate the flotsam and jetsam, however true it might be, that tends to obscure, color or bend “the truth” of the matter at hand. If you want to understand why this is important to truth-seeking, listen to the first three or four sentences of a politician’s answer to what is posed as a simple “yes” or “no” question and see if you can even remember the question by the time they get to their actual “answer” – which is almost never a “yes“ or a “no.”
Why should “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” be important to us outside of the courtroom? Because our ability to effectively govern ourselves – which is what we are supposed to be doing, albeit through our elected representatives – depends upon us having enough accurate information, enough of “the truth,” to reach informed judgments about the issues and the conduct of our representatives, and then to act on those judgments.
Whether it’s by personally contacting our mayor, our alderman, or one of the school board or park board members, by writing a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, by engaging a neighbor in conversation, or by voting, the quality and value of our self-governance tends to be only as good as our judgment; and our judgment is only as good as the information on which it is based.
Which is why it’s time that our local governments and our local newspapers started taking “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” seriously. Two examples:
* As a decision nears on the City Council choosing what is rumored to be a prominent Chicago law firm to conduct an investigation into the Park Ridge Police Department (which is sounding more and more like an effort to force out Chief Jeffrey Caudill rather than simply investigate citizen complaints and evaluate the department), why haven’t we been told “the whole truth” about: (a) the identities of the six-to-eight law firms which City Mgr. Tim Schuenke claims are being considered; (b) what exactly is the scope of the services the City is seeking; and (c) what the City has budgeted for this investigation? And why are the selection discussions/interviews being conducted in closed session [pdf], preventing the public and the media from hearing and observing those discussions even though there is no legal requirement that such discussions occur in closed session? What are they trying to hide from us, and why?
* As for “nothing but the truth,” as the City appears to get closer to bailing Napleton Cadillac out of its environmental problems and throwing some tax-break “carrots” its way, why does the City – and the local media – keep telling us that this is similar to the deal the City gave the Bredemann dealerships? Any deal with Napleton should be judged on its own merits or demerits, not on what deal may have been done with other property and another party years ago.
The simple truth is that if we want good, honest, efficient, cost-effective and accountable government in our community, then we need to start demanding it. And the first step in getting it is to insist, without compromise, on “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” from our public officials.