the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth

The Vietnam War segment on the CNN series "The Sixties" contains a taped 1965 conversation between Sen. Richard Russell and President Lyndon Johnson in which Russell told Johnson that he "couldn't have inherited a worse mess (the Vietnam war)." 

Johnson replied: "Well, if they say I inherited it, I'd be lucky, but they'll all say I created it. Dick, the trouble is, the great trouble I'm under, a man can fight if he can see daylight down the road somewhere, but there ain't no daylight in Vietnam. There's not a bit."
http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/20/us/vietnam-war-five-things/index.html

If Johnson had told the American people "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth", then do you think that the American people would have stood for sending HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of their sons, grandsons, husbands, etc. into a war that we couldn't win?

Government of the People, by the People and for the People lying to the People. 
As Yogi (Berra) said: "It's deja vu all over again."