RedState's own Susie Moore opined on this very issue and listed video after video of National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby being grilled and twice baked by reporters after they found out about Austin's medical prognosis and his unreported absence. But one statement by Kirby really stuck out to me and it should ring alarm bells to everyone. During Fox News Reporter Peter Doocy's exchange with Kirby, Doocy directly calls into question the ability of the Biden administration to tell the truth and the ability of the American people to believe anything they say. 

In answering Doocy's absolutely crushing and spot-on question, Kirby said something that immediately struck me like a lightning bolt. In his rambling gobbledegook of an answer, he said that the Pentagon was struggling with "...how hard it was for them to be fully transparent with the American people..." It was almost as if Kirby was trying to garner sympathy from Americans by pointing out the struggles and the crushingly difficult decision of whether to be honest and transparent about Austin's situation. Since when did it become so incredibly difficult to tell the truth and to tell the truth in a timely, if not immediate manner? 

Kirby's "answer" should concern you at the very least, because he said the quiet part out loud. The government that we elect to govern on our behalf struggles not to protect or serve but to hide and disguise the truth from you. How far have we as a nation sunk to get to a point where we are no longer the masters of our government? When our Founding Fathers created and established the bedrock of our Republic, politics and serving in government was considered an honorable profession. Lawyers, doctors, and politicians were mostly revered people because, for the most part, they would never lie, cheat, or steal from their constituents, patients, and or customers. 

We as a nation, as a people, have lost our way just like our elected government has. We, as a people, have lazily and continuously allowed ourselves to be relieved of our duties of holding our elected government accountable. I am probably too young (I'm freshly 42) to remember politicians in my lifetime who were upfront and honest with everything they did or said, but there was once a time when that was the rule, not the exception. We used to be able to rely on our media, whether it be print or the nightly news shows, to be told the truth, the whole truth, so help you [ratings]. We used to have news anchors like Cronkite, Brinkley, and Murrow, who you could count on to tell you the truth, or at least 85-90% of it. 

A few years ago, I wrote a speech about liberty, the importance of it, and the danger I see of it dying away in this country. I put some of my speech, albeit a variation of it, in an article I wrote not too long ago. If we do not wake up and start to rectify our mistakes, we risk losing our Republic to the forces of darkness. When your government and its representatives and agents cannot be trusted to tell you where a key official is and why they are in the hospital, what other topics or issues are they lying about or hiding from you? In this case, the crux of the issue is the truth and accountability, though it flows in the same vein as liberty. Like liberty, the truth must be fought and advocated for, if it isn't, it dies. In my speech, I wrote:

My friends, peel off the blinders they are trying to put on your eyes and see. Uncover your ears from the muffs they are offering and listen. Look and listen with an eagle’s eyes and ears. Liberty doesn’t go away crying havoc into the night. It doesn’t slip away under the waves of society for all the world to see. No, my friends, liberty slips quietly asleep, never to be awoken again, it burns slowly away like a candle being starved of air. It is unnoticeable to those who are not paying attention or to those that do not see them as being vital to our existence. And when the sheep awake from their slumber and see that Liberty has died, they cry out and ask, “how is this so? how did we not see this coming?” 

Now replace "liberty" with "truth." When we as a nation allow ourselves to be lazy and uninformed, we lose not just the truth, but we lose liberty, and our Republic after that. Being involved in politics, and now serving in a leadership position within the Republican Party, it is painfully clear that the average individual voter is losing interest in politics for many reasons. Getting people motivated and involved is getting harder and harder, and the harder it gets, the harder it becomes to be able to hold our government and its representatives accountable, let alone get them to tell you the truth or not hide things from us. 

The unchecked and unchallenged government will always turn on its people, you do not have to look far into history to see that fact. The more the government obtains power, influence, and money, the more it will serve its very own interests before serving the people's, if it even serves us at all. The only way to prevent that from happening is to reject the statements from the government AND the media and do your research into it. But be careful and don't be lazy when you do, confirmation bias is a real thing. Research what you need and want to know, not just what you want. It is also our job here at RedState to do the same thing. We will always report the facts and we will correct mistakes when they are made, while at the same time, as I am doing here, we will opine on the truth and give you what I/we are thinking.