Known, unknown and suspected lies

To borrow loosely from Donald Rumsfeld, there are known lies, unknown lies and suspected lies. Unknown lies are no doubt everywhere in politics, and keeping them secret is the name of the game, but the true mark of a polished politician is the ability to keep suspected lies from ever becoming known lies. Michal Hašek failed miserably yesterday. After four days of denial, he had to admit that he and four other top ČSSD people did in fact meet with Miloš Zeman soon after the elections. Zeman immediately went into damage control. He checked into the hospital (raising more questions about suspected lies) and said through a spokesman that he certainly didn't initiate the meeting. How much simpler everything would be for Zeman and Hašek if they could act like Rumsfeld or Obama and say the meeting on Sat. was secret because it was a matter of national security. The problem is that the CR really has no stated national-security interests. And the participants could hardly say they were meeting in secret because of Lukoil's interests, could they?