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While recent events may have jostled the news media鈥檚 attention in different directions, I am still 鈥� like a great many other people 鈥� a little obsessed with the emerging connections between U.S. President Donald Trump and the disgraced pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. Recent revelations allege that Trump signed a weird birthday card for Epstein, with a doodle of a naked woman, and dotted with cryptic sentiments like 鈥淲e have certain things in common, Jeffrey,鈥� and 鈥淎 pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday 鈥� and may every day be another wonderful secret.鈥� At the bottom of the message is what certainly looks a lot like Donald Trump鈥檚 signature.

Now, don鈥檛 get me wrong: a pal is a wonderful thing. And taken on its own, the card is not necessarily incriminating, even if it is extremely weird. What does seem incriminating is Trump, and his administration’s seemingly endless ability to deflect, deny, and lie, lie, lie about it. Trump says it鈥檚 not his signature. The Vice President echoes him. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt attempts to assuage concerns that it is definitely not Trump鈥檚 signature, and that that鈥檚 been proven thanks to a handwriting analysis commissioned by The Daily Signal 鈥� a publication that is essentially the propaganda arm of the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing conservative think tank.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer recently summed up his view of Trump (shared by many) as 鈥渁n inveterate liar聽鈥� who will just lie at will.鈥� And indeed, it鈥檚 become pretty common to hear Trump and his team referred to as pathological liars. But I don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 an especially useful description.

I鈥檝e known a few pathological liars in my day. They鈥檙e people who lie for no reason, or even obvious gain. In my work, I鈥檝e spoken to people who say things that they must know can easily be disproved with a phone call (or Google search). In Grade nine, I had a friend who told me that the band Korn played his birthday party. Sure. But the Trump administration doesn鈥檛 lie like this. Not really.

An early, and still useful, definition of pathological lying can be found in William and Mary Tenney Healy’s 鈥淧athological Lying, Accusation, and Swindling: A Study in Forensic Psychology.鈥� They describe it as, 鈥渇alsification entirely disproportionate to any discernible end in view.鈥� Suffice to say, Trump has an end in view. In the short term, the goal is to distance himself from Jeffrey Epstein. In the long-term, lying is a form of consolidating power: of blanketing the media and the public with some many fibs and falsehoods that they struggle to keep up. It is totally non-pathological. It is considered, deliberate and tactical. His lying is also totally proportionate with the damning claims being levied against him.

Writing off Trump and Co. as mere 鈥減athological liars鈥� lets them off the hook. It ascribes their desire to deceive the public to some psychological malady, and not to their ad hoc political program, such as it is. A pathological liar is hard to counter, because they are barely even responsible for their compunction. Trump (and Vance, and Leavitt, and all the other liars in the White House) are responsible. And we shouldn鈥檛 let them forget it. Or else, America may have to revise that myth of young George Washington, in order that it better square with the standards of current political life: 鈥淲hat鈥檚 that, Pa? Hatchet? Huh? Never heard of it. That cherry tree was like that when I got here.鈥�