The Whole Truth

"The whole truth", yeah, you know the phrase. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"  My perception is that the important portion of that phrase is "the whole truth".  I believe that that particular part of the oath is the most overlooked part as well.  Our wonderful president, God save our souls, claims he was telling the truth in his testimony before Congress, and I wholeheartedly believe that he believes he is telling the truth... but I don't think anyone, himself included, believes he told "the whole truth".   This whole thing about the President lying, when he has no reason to lie just baffles me.  Most people I have talked to believe that the personal life of the president or anyone else for that matter is none of our business.  However, when it comes to someone who is a known liar, and has been accused of sexual misconduct... on repeated occasions, that warrants looking into, no one should be above the law.  I didn't start this page to take jabs at the President (although Mr. Clinton makes it pretty easy), instead it was to explore "the whole truth".  Mr. Clinton swore, under penalty of perjury, not only to tell the truth, but the whole truth.  His statements, while not untrue, were only pieces of the truth, and only the pieces that he wanted people to hear.  By not telling the whole truth, I contend that, in this case and others, the defendant has perjured himself.  This also works the other way around.  Lawyers and interrogators, when questioning witnesses, often don't allow the witnesses to answer the whole truth, therefore, the witnesses are committing perjury.   Given the fact that answering a lawyer's question could lead to perjury, due to the fact that the question is only seeking a part of the truth, it is the constitutional right of the witness to refuse to answer on the grounds that it might incriminate him/her-self.   All it would take would be one well publicized case where a witness was held in contempt of court for not answering a question, based on this scenario, to change the way justice is decided in this country.  It could happen.