In his 2005 bestseller, On Bullshit, the Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt made a crucial distinction between lies and bullshit. To lie is to intentionally deceive, by saying what you know (or believe) isn't the truth. Romney does this all the time. To bullshit, though, is to talk without regard for the truth, one way or the other. The liar and the truth-teller, writes Frankfurt, "are playing on opposite sides, so to speak, in the same game"; the bullshitter, by contrast, refuses to play. "He does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all."
Frankfurt has much more to say – I'm shamelessly ripping his concept out of its context here – but applying it to recent pronouncements is illuminating.
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