I went back and reviewed what The Times has written about the controversy (my word) or scandal (Garfield's word) over the attorney general's truthfulness.
These responses (Table 4) point to a possible discrepancy among our respondents' general attitudes toward truthfulness.
That greatest of cynics, David Letterman, retired recently, a setback for cranky truthfulness in general.
"This distrust can be pervasive, spreading to a general skepticism about the truthfulness of their [women's] accounts of their own experiences," Young wrote.
But, this distrust can be pervasive, spreading to a general skepticism about the truthfulness of their own accounts of their own experiences.
Interestingly, respondents' general moral attitudes toward truthfulness in a nonmedical context did not necessarily map onto their attitudes toward deception in medicine.
How might the erosion of our common dedication to truthfulness affect education in general and in particular the training of the future researchers, oncologists, radiologists, surgeons, technicians, and nurses upon whom patients will need to depend?
It suggests that the lethal fact of a human tragedy, set against the backcloth of specific scepticism over Iraq policy, and a more general disbelief in the government's truthfulness, has combined to make the government more isolated from public opinion than at any stage in its life.
Lawyers for Mr. Birkenfeld also questioned the truthfulness of an associate attorney general, Thomas Perrelli, in a segment on "60 Minutes" on Sunday.
Mr. Gore's remarks in the four-hour interview led a senior Justice Department prosecutor, Robert J. Conrad Jr., to recommend that Attorney General Janet Reno appoint a special counsel to investigate the truthfulness of Mr. Gore's remarks.
