This is related to my longtime obsession with an aspect of official DC culture, which is that when so many people, including many people who are my dear friends and show up to my parties, are paid to lie, it is poor social form to acknowledge this. It's very rude indeed to call people liars!
There's some range between 'honest advocate' and 'paid liar for Evil Corp,' but almost everyone is somewhere along a continuum that includes lying as just a normal part of the workday. Your boss, the politician, might be one of the good ones, but it's still your job to shade the truth a bit to make them look good when necessary!
Even when people are relatively honest, they're still paid to take positions they don't necessarily personally share.
My point is not that these are all bad people (though some are!), my point is that it's an entire culture - which includes political journalism, notionally about THE TRUTH - that has absorbed unlimited dishonest as normal.
