Why can't Senators call out a lie?

[bigmonkey]

Do Senate rules ban the use of the verb "to lie"? Is it a censurable offense if one Senator calls another one a liar?

It seems to me like an untreated cancer on our public discourse that certain people can, as a result, be treated with respect while lying all the time.

Seriously, the headline is not a rhetorical question. Does anyone here know?

[PoliticAverse]

1. Actually yes Senate rules prevent one senator from insulting another which is why Elizabeth Warren..

was able to be censured (she made negative comments on then senator Sessions).

Specifically Standing Rule 19...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_Rules_of_the_United_States_Senate,_Rule_XIX
http://www.rules.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=RuleXIX

2. No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.

Sometimes you can get away with saying a senator of your own party lied though...
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article28770724.html

[bigmonkey]

2. So, would you agree that this has proved to be a pernicious rule?

Blatant lying has to be treated with respect, in that chamber. Does this amount to a modern version of the ante-bellum Senate rules banning the mention of slavery? Is there a huge positive effect I'm unaware of?

Oh, and are you actually PoliticAverse, i.e. is that your personal position?

[PoliticAverse]

3. Actually yes, I am averse to politics due to there being too much lying, duplicity and hypocrisy

involved.

The Senate is a big club, and we're not in it. The rules are to protect the clubbyness.

[PoiBoy]

4. It's perfectly acceptable for a Senator to call a sitting President a Liar...

..at the SOTU apparently...

[bigmonkey]

6. Seriously, people should know that the Senate bans plain talk about lying.

Time for that rule to be confronted.

I'm sure that Joe Wilson realized he wasn't actually breaking an enforceable rule. What about promoting a left-leaning dogwhistle term for "lying" that the non-insane Senators could use on their lying Republican colleagues?

[PoliticAverse]

8. Actually it was a Congressman and he did receive a formal rebuke from the House...

House chastises South Carolina representative who called Obama a liar
https://www.theguardian.com/world/deadlineusa/2009/sep/15/usa-democrats

[PoiBoy]

10. I realized that after I posted...

..my bad... apologies..

[world wide wally]

5. Only Trump is allowed to disparage people

[coco22]

7. We have been saying this for years..

I watch them hem and haw and act like they are being tortured. I am tired of hearing he "misled" it was a "falsehood" "mistruth" LIES! DAMN LIES we are not some innocents living in fantasy land. I think they are in a bubble ...

[bigmonkey]

9. Well, the rule makes it the Senate a "lie space"

A place where lies are explicitly treated as equivalent to the truth. An explicit example of the male paradox that calling someone a liar is worse than lying. Maybe this rule is essentially a patriarchal one.

(I mean no disparagement to "safe spaces", let me make that clear.)