So the American government lied to the Native Americans for

Hear now the words of Eddie Izzard, who spake with sharp wit and hidden sorrow: “So the American government lied to the Native Americans for many, many years, and then President Clinton lied about a relationship, and everyone was surprised! A little naive, I feel!” Beneath the cloak of jest lies a truth both bitter and enduring—that the path of rulers is often marked by deception, and that memory is short when weighed against the comforts of the present.

When he speaks of Native Americans, he summons the long tragedy of broken promises and treaties made in smoke yet dissolved in silence. For centuries, their lands were taken, their voices silenced, their dignity stripped by the very hands that swore to honor them. Such a history is a wound upon the soil, a scar written in the blood of nations. It is here that Izzard plants the root of his comparison, reminding us that betrayal was no stranger to the American story.

And then, with irony both playful and piercing, he turns to President Clinton and his falsehood about a mere relationship. The world, he notes, reeled in shock, as if a lie of the heart was unthinkable, as if deceit had never before been uttered by men in power. How strange, he muses, that a people accustomed to centuries of broken covenants could act as though the new lie was unprecedented. Thus he names this reaction naive, a blindness born of selective memory.

In these words lies more than satire—it is a call to wisdom. For Izzard shows that outrage without context is folly, and that the wise must remember the whole tapestry of history. To marvel at a single thread of falsehood while ignoring the loom of centuries is to see with clouded vision. Truth demands we acknowledge both the great betrayals of nations and the small deceits of men, for they are woven from the same cloth.

Therefore, let future generations learn: deception is no new visitor to the courts of power. To be surprised by it is to forget the lessons carved into stone and bone. Better it is to keep eyes wide open, hearts tempered by history, and spirits ready to discern falsehood wherever it takes root. For only then may the people walk with wisdom, and no longer with the naivety of those who forget.