Leonard Fein’s column in The Forward today caught my attention, not because of its substantive focus (the Clinton campaign’s ridiculous attempts to excuse Hillary Clinton’s fictional account of her Bosnia excursion as “misspeaking” or “mistaken remembrance”) but because of its opening paragraph:
Harvard’s motto is “Veritas” — truth. The motto of Brandeis is “Truth Unto Its Innermost Parts”; Yale’s is “Lux et Veritas,” light and truth (and the same for the University of Indiana); and Johns Hopkins goes with “Veritas Vos Liberabit,” the truth shall make you free.
When I was an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins, noted alumnus Russell Baker (’47) gave a speech on the theme of the University’s motto. He began, as I recall, by contrasting the Hopkins motto with those of Harvard, Brandeis & Yale. While Harvard, Brandeis & Yale cite truth for its own sake, Hopkins emphasizes the instrumental value of truth. He then pointed out that the JHU motto was not necessarily true. For example, he noted, in the case of a felon, the truth might get him fifteen to twenty years in prison, while, in the case of an unfaithful husband, the truth might set him a good deal freer than he cared to be.
Of course, even Russell Baker couldn’t have anticipated the Clintons.
I’ve never been so in need of sleep, that I claimed to have been in a war situation.
I talked about this with a psychiatrist. It has to ego and vanity. Hillary has that much of a sense of entitlement.