When are we going to get over Obama's lie and move on with picking up the pieces of this train wreck? When will the mainstream press stop acting like a jilted lover and get back to work covering news that's fresher than three years old? And when will the GOP stop throwing those rocks from the balcony of their greenhouse?

(And, no, this is in no way a defense of the president. He either knew full well what he was saying was simply not true or he didn't read the legislation. You can argue amongst yourselves over which is worse…)

Here's a newsflash: Politicians lie. Presidents are politicians. Hence, presidents lie. In fact, going back over the last 50 years or so, it's hard to find one who hasn't.

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But let's take a quick look, going straight back from what will haunt President Obama for at least the rest of his term.

George W. Bush had at least a pair of whoppers that, if they weren't outright lies were at least grossly premature presumptions. But take your pick: the weapons of mass destruction Saddam Hussein had down in his hidey hole or "Mission accomplished!" (Granted, you could easily argue that Bush himself was lied to about those phantom weapons by politicians that just happened to be from other countries.)

Bill Clinton did not have sex with that woman. Better not say any more than that, but at least this scandal clarified "it" for all of us.

George H. W. Bush told us flat out, "No new taxes." Pretty tough to misunderstand that one. (Again, this has been written off as a president promising something he knew he couldn't deliver. The same could be said of Obama.)

Ronald Reagan got caught up in a third world country full of lies that swarmed around Iran-Contra. This, of course, gave birth to the concept of "I cannot recall" at Senate hearings.

Jimmy Carter. I'll get back to him.

Richard Nixon. Do you even need me to go here? (Worth mentioning, however, is that this president almost redefined lying by giving birth to the questions: "What did the president know and when did he know it?")

Lyndon B. Johnson lied into the escalation of troops that became Vietnam. Granted, he was simply carrying the lying torch of his predecessor, John F. Kennedy, who lied our way into the godforsaken war to begin with.  

(A good friend of mine – an unabashed Tea Partier, no less – claims Carter and Bush Sr. were probably the most honest presidents we've had over the last half century. Which also might explain why they're our only one-termers, too.)

You get the idea. Presidents are strangers to truth. Or maybe they just believe the truth is whatever they say it is. After all, it was Lenin (a pretty good liar in his own right), who declared, "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." And Obama certainly told his often enough.

And, no, I'm not trolling here. More than anything else, I guess on some level I'm revealing my painfully cynical distrust of all politicians. I'm certainly not excusing the most recent president's lie, but at the same time, it's difficult for me to get as worked up about it as my Republican friends, because, we saw this coming, and, it's not exactly out of character.

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